


The High Road

by sospes



Series: The Path Not Taken [4]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: And Also Bad Communication, Angst, Bigotry & Prejudice, Canon-Typical Violence, Classism, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Courtly Bullshit, Explicit Sexual Content, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Morning Sex, Nobles Are Dicks, Panic Attacks, Poetry, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Psychological Trauma, Sharing Baths, good communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:48:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: Jaskier accepts an invitation to perform at the sixteenth birthday celebrations of an old friend's son, and, after everything, Geralt's not about to let him out of his sight. It all just sort of escalates from there.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: The Path Not Taken [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719325
Comments: 627
Kudos: 1517
Collections: Rereadable!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> When I finished _[Long and Winding](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858956)_ and _[Meandering](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24221215)_ , I said to myself that I was going to take a break from this series, and from _Witcher_ fic in general. I didn't really have any big ideas for a continuation, so I was happy with that. And then I was pottering around the house, vaguely thinking about these stories and these characters, and, lo and behold, I was smacked in the face with a plot. I literally stopped dead, stared into space, and said, "Oh no." 
> 
> So, here we are! I'm going to say straight away that the lovely Aldebraan will not be appearing in this fic, alas - instead, we're leaning back towards _[The Path Not Taken](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23647384)_ 's weird witcher romcom, with an added dash of Austen-esque comedy-of-manners!
> 
> Keep an eye on the tags for later chapters!

“I have a message for Julian Pancratz, Viscount de Lettenhove.” 

Jaskier blinks, folds his arms across his chest, and abruptly wishes that he’d listened to Geralt and hadn’t answered the knock at Triss’ door. “Is that right?” he asks, studying the liveried footman standing in front of him. There’s something about the colours of the uniform that seems oddly familiar – but, thank all the gods, there’s not a rose in sight. He tilts his head. “A message from whom, exactly?” 

The footman eyes him, the bare feet, the tousled hair, the clothes that have clearly either been slept in or hastily thrown on. In Jaskier’s defence, it’s still early. Maybe. Although he hasn’t really been paying much attention to the slipping of the hours, lately, and now that he thinks about it, the sun _is_ surprisingly high in the sky. “Are _you_ the Viscount de Lettenhove?” he asks, a faintly disparaging tone in his voice. 

Jaskier cocks an eyebrow. “It’s not a name I’ve gone by in a long time,” he says, “but yes, I am.” 

The footman’s expression doesn’t change, lips still curled in a faint sneer, but he bows so deeply his elegantly-coiffed hairstyle nearly brushes the steps up to Triss’ front door. “My lord,” he says, still shot through with displeasure, and straightens up, then produces an oversized envelope and holds it out. 

Jaskier eyes him for a moment, but there’s no indication that the envelope is going to drug him or kidnap him so he figures it’s probably fairly safe to take. The paper is expensive to the touch, gold leaf flaked elegantly across the folds, and the words _Julian de Lettenhove_ are written in beautifully-calligraphed handwriting across the front. Much like the footman’s livery, the handwriting is vaguely familiar – like a half-forgotten tune, or the lingering taste of a meal on the back of his tongue. 

“The Marquess de Göttenfal awaits your response,” the footman says, loftily superior. 

Jaskier’s head shoots up. “The Marquess de—” he starts, then cuts himself off, stares down at the envelope in his hands again. “This is from _Marcian_?” 

The footman’s lip twitches in an expression that Jaskier remembers from balls and banquets and the memories of his childhood that he’s spent the last twenty years trying to run away from. “Marcian de Göttenfal,” he says primly, “requests that you make your decision with all speed. As you will understand when you read his message, he needs an answer posthaste.” 

Jaskier looks between the envelope in his hands and the footman on Triss’ doorstep. This wasn’t what he was expecting when he woke up this morning, lazy and naked in Geralt’s arms. He licks his lips. “I assume your instructions are to wait for my answer?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow in a pale imitation of the footman’s hauteur. 

The footman inclines his head a fraction too little to be anything less, in certain circles, than a grievous insult. “That would be correct.” 

“Good,” Jaskier says. “Wait there.” 

He closes the door in the snooty footman’s face and takes the letter upstairs. 

Geralt hasn’t moved from where Jaskier left him, sprawled out in their borrowed bed, one arm thrown across his eyes, naked except for a knotted tangle of sheets thrown absently across his waist. He doesn’t look up at Jaskier’s entrance, doesn’t respond as Jaskier sits heavily on the bed next to him – but he does lift his arm when Jaskier rips the envelope open, his golden eyes narrowed in the soft light. He eyes the letter in Jaskier’s hands for a moment, then says, “Who was it?” 

“The footman of an old friend of mine,” Jaskier answers, scanning through the letter, a frown creasing his forehead. “From Oxenfurt.” 

“Another bard?” 

Jaskier snorts. “Not quite,” he says. “Oxenfurt doesn’t _just_ produce bards, Geralt, you must know that. The Seven Liberal Arts are actually more geared towards creating well-rounded nobles than wandering minstrels – I’ve always been a bit of an outlier.” Jaskier pauses, thinks, peers at Geralt over the top of the letter. “You do know I was born into the nobility, right?” 

Geralt’s watching him, his expression inscrutable. “I figured,” he answers. “The way you talk, the way you dress.” 

Jaskier preens a little. “The height of fashion?” he asks. “Impeccable taste and perfect tailoring?” 

Geralt’s lips twitch at the corner. “Impractical and gaudy.”

Jaskier returns to the letter. “Coming from you, that amounts to the same thing,” he mutters. “Heathen.”

Geralt’s hand lands on his thigh, warm and heavy. His thumb rubs circles into the fabric of Jaskier’s trousers, surprisingly soothing. “That letter’s making you nervous,” he says, and it isn’t a question. “I can hear your heart’s beating faster. You smell like adrenaline.” 

“It’s nothing,” Jaskier says, then sees Geralt’s sceptical expression and readjusts. “It’s fine. It’s just… an invitation to perform. It’s apparently the Marquess de Göttenfal’s son’s sixteenth birthday, which in Temeria necessitates a three-day celebration – banquets and feasting the night before, the night of, and the night after. And my dear friend Marcian would be honoured if I, Julian Pancratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, would attend the celebrations, reunite with old acquaintances, and, of course, grace the assembled nobles with my far-famed talents as the bard, Jaskier.” He studies the letter for a moment, flips it over, checks there’s nothing on the back. “He wants me to play for his son’s birthday,” Jaskier summarises with significantly less flouncing. “He’ll pay, too, which I was a bit surprised by, given all the… frills.” 

Geralt’s gaze is steady, if a little confused. “And that makes you nervous?” 

Jaskier drops the letter to the bedspread, lifts Geralt’s hand from his hip and brings it to his lips, kisses his knuckles. “The last people who came looking for me weren’t exactly… friendly,” he points out, and does his best to ignore the tremor that he can’t quite keep out of his voice. “And how did Marcian’s people find out I was here, anyway? In a sorceress’ house? And how did he know that _Jaskier_ is actually _Julian_?” 

Geralt sits up, his scarred muscles moving under his skin like a fucking panther’s. “We haven’t been subtle about being here,” he says, quiet in the air between them. “You made us wander around the market for most of a day until you found that fish you wanted, and then when we went to the tavern last night, you picked a fight with a local poet because he was reciting a knock-off version of one of your collections.” 

Jaskier screws up his nose. “I don’t mind imitation or, fuck, even pastiche,” he mutters, “but at least make it _good_ pastiche.” 

Geralt seems to ignore that. “It’d be easy to track down where you were staying, after that,” he says, very rational and reasonable and unhelpful. “We’ve not been hiding our tracks, not since Yen left with Ciri.” 

Jaskier deflates a little, but he can still taste the fear in the back of his throat. It tastes like grave dirt and arsenic, slicked across his branded tongue. “That doesn’t explain how they know who I am,” he points out. “I’d wager that _you_ wouldn’t have known how to address a formal letter to me.” 

“Wouldn’t need to address a formal letter to you.” 

“That’s a little beside the point.” 

Geralt hums, and his hand cups Jaskier’s cheek, gently, almost tentative, the tips of his fingers sliding into Jaskier’s hair. 

Jaskier takes a breath, steadies himself in the warmth of that hand. “Aldebraan knew who I was,” he says, quieter, and for once doesn’t try to conceal the fact that his voice is shaking. “Knew I was Jaskier, yeah, Jaskier the bard, but he knew I was Julian, too.” 

Geralt moves closer, his legs bracketing Jaskier in place, his hands holding him steady. “He can’t touch you,” he says, a note of witcher steel in his voice. “I won’t let him touch you.” 

Jaskier nods shakily. “I know,” he says, then turns his head just slightly, presses a soft kiss into Geralt’s palm. “I’d just feel better if he was dead.” 

Something flashes in Geralt’s eyes, a particular mix of guilt and self-hatred that Jaskier knows all too well. It’s gone before Jaskier can open his mouth to counter it, though. “Eskel’s gone to see if he can track him down,” Geralt says, short and to the point, shoving his emotions down under a swift change of subject – a classic Geralt move, Jaskier knows. “Someone will know something – someone always knows something. It’s only been a few weeks. We’ll find him, I swear. And I’ll kill him.” 

Jaskier tries for a smile. “Think you might have to fight Yennefer for that particular right,” he says. 

Geralt huffs a laugh. “Yen doesn’t have to know,” he says, gravelly and rough, his hands still so very gentle against Jaskier’s skin. 

“Do all witchers express their feelings through threats of violence?” Jaskier asks, doing his best to lighten the mood before he falls down this particular rabbit hole again and ends up waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, clutching at the faint scar on his throat. “Or is it just you, my white wolf?” 

Geralt’s eyes smile, even though the rest of his face doesn’t so much as twitch. “Aldebraan can’t hurt you,” he says, soft as the springtime breeze in the treetops. “I’ll be by your side every moment of the day. I’ll protect you.” 

Jaskier leans forward, catches Geralt’s lips in a soft kiss – and something in him still thrills at the realisation that he gets to do that, just kiss Geralt whenever he wants, soft and pausing or hard and heated. Geralt kisses back, which improves the whole scenario immeasurably, and for a little while they just kiss like that, no rush, no panic, no fear, only the softness of the bedsheets and the warmth of their lips. 

Geralt breaks the kiss, leans back down against the pillows, and this time he tugs Jaskier with him, wraps an arm around his shoulders and runs a warm palm underneath the loose hem of his shirt. “Do you want to go?” he asks, nosing at the line of Jaskier’s neck, and for a good second or two Jaskier has no idea what he’s talking about. 

He remembers, though, and thinks about it. “I do,” he says eventually, as Geralt presses a series of increasingly open-mouthed kisses down his neck, then pulls away just long enough to get the shirt over Jaskier’s head. “I haven’t done a proper performance since we left Kaer Morhen – and as appreciative as you witchers are, it’s not the same as a proper _banquet_. Gods, they’re fun.” Jaskier runs a hand through Geralt’s hair as he bites a gentle bruise into his collarbone, gasps a little as Geralt cups his half-hard cock through his trousers, squeezes lightly. “Geralt, there’s a Marquess’ footman waiting for my answer outside the front door! You can’t just drag me into bed.” 

“He’s used to waiting on fancy nobles,” Geralt says in between stripping off Jaskier’s trousers and sucking another bruise onto his hip. “He can wait until I’ve fucked you again.” 

“The banquet’s pretty soon, actually,” Jaskier points out. “And Marcian did request a response _posthaste_.” He mimics the footman’s smarmy tone, then groans as Geralt’s somehow-slick fingers—Jaskier didn’t even see him grab the damn _oil_ —reach between his legs, sink into him with barely any resistance. 

“Is it going to happen in the next hour?” Geralt asks, knocking Jaskier’s thighs further apart and settling between them. 

Jaskier throws his head back against the pillows. “It’s next week,” he groans. 

“Then it can wait,” Geralt says, and then his mouth is on Jaskier’s cock and, well, Jaskier might be the one with the magic tongue but Geralt’s not exactly a slouch in that department, either. Jaskier slumps back, closes his eyes, and moans loud enough that the footman standing on the doorstep can probably hear him through the open window. 

It takes Jaskier a little over an hour to give his answer to the footman. When he opens the front door again, clothes even more bedragged than before, hair even more tousled, more than one fresh bruise on his neck and distinctly smelling of sex, a pained twitch runs across the man’s haughty expression – although, to his credit, he genuinely doesn’t seem to have moved. “Tell the Marquess de Göttenfal that I’d be honoured,” Jaskier says, and sketches a bow. “I will arrive at the manor a week from today, as requested, and I will would be delighted to play for all three nights of his beloved son’s birthday celebrations.” He hesitates, just for a moment. “And please also inform the Marquess that, with his permission, I will be bringing a guest.” 

The footman bows in answer, nowhere _near_ deep enough to actually be respectful. “My lord,” he says with none of the requisite formal responses, and practically flees back to his horse. 

Jaskier laughs softly, and closes the door behind him. 

Geralt’s in the kitchen, trousers laced low on his hips, shirtless, hair unbound. “He’s gone?” 

“I think he would have spat in my face if he could,” Jaskier says, grinning. “But yeah, he’s gone.” 

Geralt pauses for a second. “A guest?” he aks, a little quieter. 

“I can introduce you as my bodyguard instead if you want me to,” Jaskier says with a laugh, then pauses, swallows, realises he hasn’t actually asked the question he probably should have. “That’s assuming that you want to come with me?” 

Geralt raises an eyebrow. “How am I supposed to protect you if I’m not with you?” he says – which, Jaskier notes but doesn’t want to examine, doesn’t really answer the question. Geralt has told him that he’ll be coming. He hasn’t said whether he actually _wants_ to. 

Jaskier flashes as much of a smile as he can. “That’s true,” he says. “I guess I should be grateful. Taking time out of your busy schedule to come with me. All those monsters to slay, but instead you’ll have to wear clothes you don’t like and put up with preening nobles all night. And not even just one night, either! It’s a three-day extravaganza. That’s a lot of nobles, and at least _three_ uncomfortable outfits.” 

Geralt catches his hand as he gesticulates, kisses the fluttering pulse in his wrist. “Jaskier,” he interrupts, strong and calm and loving – and, gods, Jaskier would challenge _anyone_ not to go weak at the knees at that voice. “Stop. I want to come.” 

“You hate fancy parties,” Jaskier protests weakly. 

Geralt’s lips quirk. “I do hate fancy parties,” he agrees, pulls Jaskier closer, kisses him softly. “But you don’t. You want to go, and I want to be with you. So it’s easy.” 

“When you put it like that,” Jaskier says, and his heart does the funny little flip-flopping thing in his chest that it hasn’t done for anyone before Geralt, who somehow manages to make it happen at least twice a day. 

Consternation flickers in Geralt’s eyes, just for a moment. “But I don’t have to be your guest,” he says, a little gruffer, his fingers flexing on Jaskier’s hip in a gesture that Jaskier has come to realise reeks of unease. “I can be your bodyguard. I don’t have to be your lover if you don’t want me to be.” 

Jaskier pauses for a long moment, blinking at Geralt like a fool. “Just to confirm,” he says, pressing his palm flat and warm against Geralt’s chest. “Just to check that I’m not misunderstanding you here, Geralt, and that this isn’t your weird witcher way of telling me you’re leaving me and breaking my heart again – do you actually think that I wouldn’t want to show you off to _everyone_ at that fancy banquet? Do you honestly think that I don’t want every fucking noble on the _continent_ to know that I get to have you in my bed _every night_?”

Geralt doesn’t answer, which tells Jaskier that he’s got it exactly right. 

Jaskier sighs, slides his hands around the back of Geralt’s neck and pulls him close for a searching kiss. “We make a right pair, don’t we?” he asks, halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Geralt, you gave me your world – Kaer Morhen, your brothers, even fucking _Yennefer_ , who I will never admit that I actually quite like, now that we’ve got to spend a bit of quality time together.” 

Geralt frowns. “I don’t think being locked up in a dungeon is what most people would call ‘quality time’.” 

Jaskier wags a finger at him. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” he says mock-wisely, then drops the act, drops the pretence, leans forward and presses his forehead to Geralt’s, shares his warmth and his breaths and the beating of his heart. “You gave me your world, Geralt,” he repeats, softer. “Let me give you mine.” 

There’s still something a little guarded in Geralt’s expression, a little wary, but his shoulders relax and he nods, accepting. 

Jaskier smiles. “Good,” he says. “Now that’s sorted, we need to get dressed and go shopping.” 

Geralt’s face falls. “Shopping?” 

Jaskier nods vigorously. “I’ve been cooped up in a mountain fortress with a bunch of witchers whose idea of fashion is the trousers that _don’t_ have a rip in the back,” he says. “If I show up on Marcian’s doorstep—who, I should add, I haven’t actually seen for the better part of a decade—dressed in any of the outfits I’ve got with me now, I’ll be laughed out of town. No, I need to find a decent tailor – for _both_ of us, Geralt, and don’t pull that face at me! If I’m going to display you on my arm like the glorious prize you are, you’re not allowed to wear clothes that have at any point in their lifespan been _anywhere near_ the inside of a kikimora.” 

Geralt pulls away, folds his arms. “I’ve changed my mind,” he says gruffly. “I’m not coming anymore.” 

Jaskier laughs and steals a kiss. “Too late,” he says brightly. “Marcian will be expecting two of us, now. And Eskel isn’t here for me to bully into accompanying me, so you’ll just have to shoulder the burden that is my company yourself.” 

Geralt catches him, kisses him, and there’s something more fervent in this kiss. “You’re not a burden,” he whispers practically between Jaskier’s lips. “You were never a burden.” 

Jaskier’s mouth crooks in a smile, and he doesn’t think about the mountain, about the pain in Geralt’s face and the cruelty in his words. “I know,” he says. “But I _am_ going to make you wear fancy clothes, so you may want to revise that opinion before the week is up.” 

A genuinely pained expression flickers across Geralt’s face, and Jaskier suppresses a laugh. 

The estate of the Marquess de Göttenfal is two days’ journey away through the leafy Temerian countryside, trees laden with the blossom of spring and the sun bright and cheery in the sky overhead. Roach is laden down with the fruits of the afternoon Jaskier spent with Triss’ favourite tailor, so Geralt walks alongside her, her reins loosely wrapped around his wrist – they’re not in a rush, and they’d have to keep to a walking pace, anyway. 

Jaskier walks ahead, fingers strumming lightly across the strings of his lute, picking out chords and melodies with barely a thought. He sings occasionally, snatches of tunes that Geralt mostly recognises, and every time he does there’s the faintest tremble in his medallion, hidden beneath the neck of his shirt, pressed close to his chest. It’s fainter than it was, definitely, fainter than that first time that Jaskier sang and it was like a tsunami of raw magic, but it still sets Geralt’s teeth on edge, just a little. It’s a reminder that he couldn’t keep Jaskier safe. It’s a reminder that he let this happen to him. 

Jaskier turns on his heel, stops in the middle of the road and waits for Geralt to catch up with him. “I’ve just realised,” he says abruptly, a crease furrowing his forehead. “This whole magic tongue business. It’s going to affect what I can and can’t perform, isn’t it?” 

“How?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier falls into step with him, his bent elbow brushing against Geralt’s arm, the breeze brushing his hair into his eyes. “Well, when I sing, my audience can feel certain emotions and certain memories, right?” he says. “But as far as I know, I can’t control what exactly I’m… projecting, for lack of a better word. So what if I sing something that’s supposed to be an epic tale of your heroism and derring-do – and the only thing my audience gets from it is how much it turns me on when you come back from a contract all black-eyed and scary.” 

Geralt looks at him sideways, surprised. “It does?” 

Jaskier wrinkles his nose, not looking particularly embarrassed. “A bit,” he says. “A lot, actually.” He frowns. “I thought you witchers could smell arousal?” He snorts. “Eskel seemed to be able to.”

“We can,” Geralt says, shrugging. “But when I’m like that, I can smell _everything_. Bit distracting.” 

“Fair enough,” Jaskier says, nodding. “Thing is, I think I need to test them. My songs. At least, the ones I’m planning on performing – which, given that this is a three-day affair, is actually quite a lot. You know, to make sure that I get the right mood.” 

“Okay,” Geralt says, not quite understanding what the problem is. 

“And I’ll have to test them on you,” Jaskier says, looking a little awkward. “Because you’re the only one around. I mean, I could go find an innkeeper or a shepherd or a barmaid or something, but that might be a little… awkward. And I know it’s not exactly your idea of a perfect day to listen to me rattling through my entire back catalogue, but better safe than sorry, right?” He reaches out, squeezes Geralt’s forearm. “I’ll make it up to you later,” he says, apologetic. 

“You don’t have to make it up to me,” Geralt says, readjusts the wrap of Roach’s reins around his hand. “I like your singing.” 

Jaskier stops dead in the middle of the road, and Geralt is obliged to copy him. Jaskier’s just… _staring_ at him, mouth slightly agape, hands paused on the strings of his lute, and for a second worry surges up in Geralt’s heart. Is this some kind of side-effect of whatever fucked-up magic he was subjected to at Aldebraan’s hands? “Jaskier?” he asks, taking a step towards him.

Jaskier blinks. “What happened to the fillingless pie?” he practically squeaks.

Geralt frowns. “That was years ago,” he says, and then adds, a little lamely, “And I was tired.” 

“You _like_ my _singing_ ,” Jaskier says. 

“Not all of it,” Geralt says defensively. 

“But _most of it_ ,” Jaskier says, stepping towards him and poking a finger into his chest. “You _like it!_ ” 

“I never said I didn’t,” Geralt grumbles. 

“No, you just sat in the corner when I was performing and ignored me,” Jaskier says. “Or threatened to gallop off on Roach and leave me behind if I didn’t shut up.” 

“You shouldn’t sing so much on the road,” Geralt points out. “Draws attention to us. It’s dangerous.” 

“ _Dangerous_.” 

Geralt eyes him. “Just take the compliment.” 

Jaskier shakes his head. “Oh no,” he says, lips splitting into a beaming smile. “I’m _never_ going to shut up about this, Geralt. You like my singing! You don’t just tolerate it because you’re sleeping with me!” 

Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes. He turns back to the road, keeps walking, Roach trotting happily at his side. “I wasn’t sleeping with you for years and I still listened to you,” he points out. 

“Do I have to bring up the pie incident again?” Jaskier asks, following him. 

“That was _once_ ,” Geralt groans. 

Jaskier sniffs. “It left a lasting impact on my psyche.” 

“Clearly.” 

Jaskier’s quiet for a moment, which is always a concern. Geralt glances over to him, sees that the outrage and offence has been replaced by an expression that’s almost… nervous? Tentative might be a better word, and Jaskier flashes him a small smile, says, “You mean it, though?” 

Something clenches in Geralt’s gut. “I mean it,” he answers, and there’s a part of him that can’t stand the echo of hurt in Jaskier’s voice. He spent so many years pushing him away, pushing him back, keeping him at arm’s length because people who get too close to him end up hurt or heartbroken or _dead_ – and he never thought he regretted it, no, but now Jaskier looks at him like he’s just plucked the moon out of the sky and handed it to him, all because Geralt said _I like your singing_. 

“Well, in that case, I have no choice but to delight my audience,” Jaskier says, plays a bright, shining chord, and starts singing. 

They spend the rest of their journey to the estate like that, walking slowly through the countryside in springtime, Jaskier running through epics and love songs and bawdy tunes that are really only appropriate for the inside of a whorehouse, if Geralt’s being honest with himself. Most of them don’t pose any problems for public performance – Geralt feels tense and excited at the epics, brimming with affection at the love songs, raucously joyful and a little tight in his trousers at the filth. The songs that aren’t Jaskier’s own compositions are even more straightforward, as it turns out – a classic Cintran drinking song only raises the faintest pang of amusement, while a tale of doomed love only twists his heart a little. “That’s good,” Jaskier says, nodding to himself. “Means if I’m stuck, I can always resort to the classics.” He wrinkles his nose. “Although I do prefer to perform my own work, you know. It’s just so much more _satisfying_ that way.”

Geralt has no idea, actually, but Jaskier doesn’t seem to need a response. 

There’s only one song that’s problematic, as they discover on the second day, a complex, intricate song that Jaskier wrote about one of Geralt’s bloodier tussles with a nest of vampires, five or six years ago, now. The song is triumphant enough, glossing over the fact that Geralt ended up with a slashed artery and nearly bled out before Jaskier could get him to the local healer, instead ending with a fast-paced, victorious verse about the courage and might of the White Wolf – but the moment Jaskier starts singing, cold, bitter fear closes its hand tight around Geralt’s heart, a fear that he hasn’t felt for as long as he can remember. 

He stops in the middle of the road, heart beating loud in his ears, and grabs at the back of Jaskier’s doublet, pulls him to a stop as well. Jaskier’s expression is startled and his fingers strike a twanging, painful chord from his lute – but then he sees Geralt’s face, caught in a rictus of terror, and he sucks in a sharp breath. “Right,” he says. “Okay. Not that one, I’m guessing?” 

“You were so afraid,” Geralt grinds out, feeling the magic dissipating quickly, the fear slipping out between his fingers like sand. “Fuck, Jaskier, you were _terrified._ ” 

“I thought you were going to die,” Jaskier says softly, slinging his lute over his back and stepping forward, pressing close to Geralt even though they’re in the middle of the road, the sun high and bright overhead. “I had to hold you up to stop you falling off Roach and there was blood _everywhere_. I thought I was going to lose you.” 

Geralt kisses him, borderline desperate. It’s not his fear and it happened years ago, nothing more than another scar by now, but it’s bitter and acrid in his throat. He kisses Jaskier, crushes him tight, and forces down the memory of his own fear, hot and overflowing, his fear at the blood vomiting from Jaskier’s lips in the torchlight under the trees, his fear that Jaskier was gone, that he wasn’t going to save him this time. 

“Hey,” Jaskier says, his hand sliding into Geralt’s hair. “Hey, it’s okay.” 

They stand there longer than they really should, wrapped around each other in the sunlight, unmoving. 

“So, as a rule,” Jaskier says when they eventually disentangle themselves from each other, “I’ll try to avoid songs about hunts where you nearly died.” He nods, flashes Geralt a strangled smile. “I can do that.” 

Geralt hums, and they head back down the road. 

If Jaskier doesn’t wander ahead quite so far, and if Geralt watches him a little more intently than he was before, then neither of them is going to mention it. 

Dusk is beginning to settle over the world when they reach the manor. 

They’ve been walking in companionable quiet for an hour or so now, their steps in perfect sync, Jaskier’s lute back in its case, the back of his hand brushing casually against Geralt’s every now and then. They knew they’d reached the estate a little while ago, a huge pair of ornately-carved gates announcing to the world that this was private property, but the manor itself is set back from the borders, through a narrow belt of woodland that opens up onto manicured gardens and, beyond, rolling hills and moorland. 

The manor itself rears up in front of them, as ornately decorated as the gates, golden stone practically glowing in the evening light, and Geralt feels a familiar discomfort settle low in his gut. Places like this are never exactly _welcoming_ to a witcher – and, even if they are, it usually ends up like his seat at Calanthe’s right hand: he’s only wanted because they think they can use him to kill something, or someone. Jaskier, though, practically _bounces_ at the sight, letting out a bright whistle that, despite his misgivings, warms Geralt’s heart. “My, my, Marcian,” Jaskier says, half to himself. “You _do_ do well for yourself, don’t you?” 

“I thought you said you knew this man?” Geralt asks, frowning.

“I do,” Jaskier answers, nodding. “But I’ve never visited his home. We were much more likely to go get debauched at whatever tavern hadn’t banned us yet when we were at Oxenfurt, and then afterwards, I’d mainly run into him at other people’s banquets, other people’s celebrations, that kind of thing.” He shrugs. “A fairly typical noble friendship where you don’t actually know the other person that well at all. I’ve never been here before.” 

Geralt hums, a little doubtful. 

“Don’t worry,” Jaskier says, reaching out and squeezing his hand briefly. “Of all the arsehole lords I’ve met over the years, he’s probably one of the _least_ arseholey.” 

“High praise,” Geralt rumbles. 

Jaskier shrugs. “Come on,” he says, and leads Geralt onwards. 

The manor’s forecourt is quiet at this time of the day, but a stablehand appears as if by magic within a few moments, bowing to Jaskier, then to Geralt, and taking Roach’s reins. “Your bags will be brought to your rooms straightaway, my lord de Lettenhove,” the boy says. “Would you like me to take your instrument?” 

Jaskier pats his lute almost possessively. “Ah, no, that’s alright,” he says with a vaguely awkward smile. “I’ll keep it with me, if that’s alright.” 

The stablehand bows again, then leads Roach away towards the stables. 

Geralt watches him go until he’s content that Roach doesn’t look like she’s going to kick anyone’s head in, then looks back to Jaskier. “Is everyone here going to call you ‘my lord’?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Jaskier snorts. “I certainly fucking hope not,” he says, starting up the steps that lead to the manor’s main doors. “There’s a reason I go by Jaskier nowadays. People bowing and scraping the whole time?” He shudders. “It’s too much.” 

Geralt hums. “I’m surprised,” he says, keeping his tone light. “I would have thought that you’d enjoy it.” 

“What, all the obsequiousness and flattery?” 

“The acknowledgement,” Geralt says. “The recognition.” 

Jaskier glances sideways at him, smiles just a little. “When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad,” he says, and for some reason Geralt’s heart thuds a little harder in his chest.

Before they can even reach the entrance to the manor, set back across a broad swathe of expensive-looking stone paving, the doors are thrown open and a man comes striding out, arms flung wide. “ _Julian!_ ” he calls, a deep, booming baritone that Geralt thinks might just have been trained as much as Jaskier’s tenor. “I’m so glad you accepted my invitation! It’s been _far_ too long.” He’s tall and broad, although good living has clearly turned what was once muscle into a soft layer of fat, but that doesn’t negate the sheer joy his presence radiates as he grabs Jaskier into a bruising embrace. “You look good, my friend!” the man that Geralt is guessing is probably the Marquess exclaims. “A little dusty, admittedly – did you _walk_ here?” 

“We did!” Jaskier answers brightly. “Temeria is lovely this time of year – it seemed a waste to hide behind the doors of a carriage.” Geralt frowns a little—what is Jaskier talking about? they don’t have a _carriage_ —but then Jaskier’s turning to him, his hand on the Marquess’ back, angling him towards Geralt. “And this is my guest. Geralt, this is Marcian, the Marquess de Göttenfal and my old friend. Marcian, this is Geralt of Rivia, a witcher of Kaer Morhen and my – trusted companion.” 

Geralt doesn’t miss the hesitation. 

Marcian eyes Geralt appraisingly. “A _witcher_ , Julian?” he asks. “I knew you’d chosen an… _unconventional_ life for yourself, but I wasn’t aware that you were travelling with a witcher nowadays.” – but then all of a sudden he’s beaming again. “But any friend of Julian’s is a friend of mine!” he declares, broad and loud. “Come, come, both of you. I’m taking dinner in my private dining room with a few close friends – will you join me?” 

“We’d be honoured,” Jaskier says, dipping a small bow. “Is there time for us to freshen up a little? As you yourself said – we’re a little dusty.” 

“Yes, yes, of course,” Marcian says, leading them through the grand entrance. He gestures to a servant, says, “Take the Viscount de Lettenhove and his companion to their rooms, then bring them to my dining room when they are ready.” 

The footman bows. “My lord.” 

Jaskier shoots Geralt a glance that Geralt can’t quite parse, but then they’re being led away through the maze of the manor’s corridors and there’s not really time to try to figure out Jaskier’s myriad facial expressions. 

Their bags are already in the suite of rooms that the footman leads them to, sitting in a small dirty pile that looks slightly pathetic compared to the grandeur of the rooms themselves. They’re standing in a lavishly-appointed central room, equipped with a table, multiple chairs, a chaise longue and a small loveseat, with wide windows looking over the spread of the marquess’ estate, now barely lit by the dying sunlight. Two doors lead off to what Geralt is guessing are two bedrooms, one for each of them, and he thinks about _trusted companion_ for a moment with a strange sickness in his stomach. The servant stands at the open door to the suite, watching them with that perfectly neutral expression that Geralt has come to expect from servants of the upper classes. It makes Geralt vaguely uncomfortable but he knows that to shut the door in the man’s face would be so much worse.

Jaskier, however, doesn’t seem to have any qualms about being watched. He’s surveying the rooms quickly, testing out the loveseat and then poking his head into both of the bedrooms, and he makes an approving noise at the sight of the second one. “Grab our bags, Geralt, and put them in here,” he calls, already starting to unbutton his road-dusty doublet. “The other bedroom is…” He trails off, eyes the servant for a moment. “Not quite what we want,” he settles on, but there’s a mirth in his gaze that Geralt can’t help but smile at. “Come on. There’s a basin of water in here, we can have a wash and get changed.” He raises his voice a little, flashes the servant a smile. “We won’t be a minute,” he says brightly, and ushers Geralt into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. 

Geralt drops their bags at the foot of the bed, which is significantly more elaborate than the one they shared at Triss’—hanging velvet drapes, more tassels than Geralt can count, a dozen pillows and three counterpanes—but, disappointingly, slightly smaller. Jaskier’s stripping out of his doublet and undershirt, muttering something to himself about dust in places that should never be dusty, then his trousers join the crumpled pile of clothing on the floor and he’s crossing to the basin in the corner in just his smallclothes, unselfconscious about his nudity, shoulders broad and muscled, strong legs, slim waist. 

“Are you ogling me, Geralt?” 

Geralt blinks. “No,” he says automatically, then sees the laughter in Jaskier’s eyes and relents. “You’re pretty much naked. It’s distracting.” 

Jaskier’s smile is warm. “Well, this time we don’t have time for you to distract me into bed,” he says, turning back to the basin. “We’re having dinner with Marcian and his friends, apparently, which wasn’t exactly what I expected.” He glances back over his shoulder, grimaces a little. “You might be about to get some inappropriate questions thrown your way,” he says. “Sorry.” 

Geralt shrugs. “I’ve had worse.” 

“True,” Jaskier says, then glances down at his dusty boots, his dirt-flecked trousers. “You are going to change, right?” 

“Wasn’t planning to,” Geralt says, then thinks about the marquess’ expensive fabrics and beringed hands, the fine embroidery in his sleeves and the smart polish to his shoes. Geralt doesn’t give a shit about nobles and their finery, doesn’t give a shit about making them like him or not look down their noses at him – but Jaskier looked at him, hesitated, and said _trusted companion_. He didn’t say _lover_ , didn’t say _beloved_ , didn’t say _light of my life_ or _sun to my stars_ or any of the other endearments that he sings in snippets of song that Geralt knows are only half-joking. He said _trusted companion_. 

“I mean, it’s up to you,” Jaskier says, rummaging through the package of new, unworn clothes that they brought with them. He fishes out a deep midnight blue doublet with matching trousers, embroidered details picked out at the wrists and the hips in yellow-golden thread, then finds a clean undershirt and starts getting dressed. “Personally, I think the grumpy, dirty, rugged look is really good on you. But Marcian can be… judgemental.” 

Slowly, Geralt gets changed. 

Jaskier grins at him, runs his fingertips down the silken black fabric of Geralt’s shirt, tugs at the laces of the form-fitting trousers. The clothes aren’t much different to his usual ones, to be honest, for which he’s grateful – but the fabrics are obviously expensive and sit against his skin like they’re too good for him, like they’re not right. Jaskier, though, is looking at him with a familiar hunger in his eyes. “You look good,” he says, a purr in his voice that settles something warm and low in Geralt’s stomach. “I really wish that we _did_ have time to fuck at least twice in that fancy bed, because, _gods_ , I want to rip these off you right now.” His lips purse. “But that will have to wait.” He pauses, brushes his fingertips against Geralt’s cheek. “You going to be okay?” he asks. “I know you don’t like this kind of thing.” 

Geralt ducks his head, kisses Jaskier lightly. “I’m fine,” he says. “Let’s go.” 

Jaskier studies him for a moment, clearly not entirely convinced, but then he smiles, small and warm, and Geralt would do anything so that that smile never has to dim. 

Marcian’s servant leads them through the manor to the marquess’ private dining room – which isn’t nearly as small and, well, _private_ as Geralt expected. The room is twice the size of the small hall at Kaer Morhen, all mahogany panelling and velvet accents, rich rugs underfoot and furniture that gleams with gilded edges. The air is thick with perfume, with the smell of food, with the heady scent of wine, and after the quiet of Triss’ house it makes Geralt blink, shakes his head just a little. 

At Geralt’s side, Jaskier laughs and shakes his head. “Marcian has an interesting definition of _a few close friends_.” 

There are at least thirty people in this room, dressed just as richly as the marquess, expensive linens and flowing silks, crushed velvets and intricate lace. It’s not like there’s a pause in the conversation when they enter, no, it’s nothing as obvious as that, but Geralt hears the words that are muttered into hands and wine glasses, _de Lettenhove_ and _bard_ and, of course, _witcher_. 

His stomach twists, and when a servant offers him a glass of wine, he drinks it in one and immediately reaches for another. 

“ _Julian!_ ” 

Geralt doesn’t jump out of his skin, because that’s only because he’s a witcher and witchers don’t do things like that. 

A woman comes barrelling towards Jaskier, her dress a rich, vibrant gold, her hair braided in intricate knots on top of her head. She barely waits for his laugh of greeting—“ _Violetta_ , my love!”—and then she’s in his arms, her eyes as bright and shining as Jaskier’s. “I didn’t know you would be here!” she says. 

“It was a last-minute thing,” Jaskier answers, before sweeping up her hand and pressing a firm kiss to her knuckles. “Marcian heard I was in the area, and he just _had_ to have me perform.”

“Well, I’m glad he did,” the woman says. “It’s been _too long_ , my darling, _far_ too long. You should come to the estate some time – you know you’re always welcome.” 

“I know,” Jaskier says, and there’s a smile on his lips that Geralt doesn’t think he’s ever seen before, affectionate, warm, all tinged with a hint of… melancholy? History? “Please, Violetta, let me introduce you to my guest.” He turns to Geralt, eyes so very blue in the candlelight. “This is Geralt.” 

The woman presses her hand to her heart. “ _The_ Geralt?” 

Jaskier’s eyes shine. “The very same,” he says. “And Geralt, this is the lovely Violetta Allendorf, the Countess de Stael, my erstwhile patron and beloved muse.” 

“Delighted to meet you,” the Countess says, her gaze straying to the open neck of Geralt’s silken shirt. “You certainly know how to make a monster hunter presentable, Julian. He looks _delectable_.” 

Jaskier looks faintly pained. “Violetta—”

Violetta—the Countess de Stael, the woman that Jaskier once loved more than anything in the world, his _beloved muse_ —squeezes his forearm and shushes him. “Now, now, Julian, let’s not argue,” she says, and her hand lingers on his arm. “Leave your witcher be, he’s had more than enough of your time, I’m sure. Come and _talk_ to me, Julian, I have _missed_ you!” 

Jaskier is being pulled away, hand in hand with a beautiful, wealthy noblewoman whose golden dress echoes the golden threads in Jaskier’s doublet. He’s being handed around the closest friends of the Marquess de Göttenfal, kissing hands and beaming bright, charming and flirting and _living_ , blazing with fire and life and ecstasy. He’s beautiful and he’s perfect and it’s like this was what he was born to do. 

Geralt stands there in his silken shirt and his expensive trousers, dust still riming the edges of his boots, and knows this is not where he’s meant to be.


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner is served by an army of servants, clad head-to-toe in black and carrying out an array of dishes that are, frankly, a little unnecessary. They’re shown to their seats when the table is ready, and any hope that Geralt had been quietly entertaining of managing to get a little respite from the curious looks and whispered conversation that he can hear as clearly as if they were shouted in his ear is dashed by the fucking _seating plan_. It’s a strict alternation of male and female guests, meaning that Geralt couldn’t be next to Jaskier anyway, but apparently whoever did the plan decided that they should be diagonal to each other on opposite sides of the table, close enough to see each other but far enough that conversation isn’t exactly encouraged. 

And of course, the Countess is sitting at Jaskier’s right hand. 

“I understand that you’re the witcher, Geralt of Rivia.” 

There’s a tall, thin woman sitting next to Geralt, her cheekbones so sharply pronounced they look like they’d cut with the lightest touch and more than a touch of grey in her elegantly-coiffed hair. She’s looking at him with a vaguely expectant expression, and Geralt might not _like_ parties like this, might not enjoy being gawped at and paraded around in front of nobles whose idea of hardship is a straw rather than a feather mattress, but he knows what’s expected of him. “I am,” he answers, inclining his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know you.” 

“Calla,” the woman answers, the tone of her voice suggesting quite firmly that that’s about as far as her interest in exchanging pleasantries goes. There are wrinkles around her eyes, her skin the papery-thin of the rich and elderly. “You travel with the Viscount de Lettenhove, is that right? As his protector?” 

Geralt catches Jaskier’s gaze across the table, and Jaskier’s expression is deeply apologetic – but at the same time there’s an undeniable affection in his eyes, warm and deep. Geralt remembers the feeling that swept over him the first time Jaskier sang his song of Kaer Morhen, love like a blazing fire in the hearth in the small hall, embracing, encompassing – and the magic of his branded tongue has faded since then, ebbing from a howling surge to a glimmer at the corner of his eye, but that love still twines around his heart every time Jaskier hums a verse. 

Fuck them if these pampered nobles think that Jaskier’s one of them. Geralt knows that Jaskier is his. 

Geralt reaches for his wine, takes a long sip. “That’s correct,” he says, keeping his voice as level as it ever is. “I save him from tripping into muddy ditches and ruining his clothes. And occasionally I kill monsters.” 

Diagonally down the table, Jaskier splutters into his wine. 

Calla stares at Geralt for a second, clearly surprised, then a smile twitches her lips and she turns towards him in her chair a little more. “Muddy ditches, you say?” she asks. “Do tell me more.” 

“He fell into a swamp full of drowners, once,” Geralt says, taking his cue from the other guests and starting to eat. I had to take a break from fulfilling my contract to haul him out by the scruff of his neck, then he slipped on the bank and fell back in barely a moment later.” 

Calla lets out a startled laugh. “Julian was painting quite a different picture before dinner,” she says. “It was more heroism and romance, less… puddles and ditches.” 

“He’s a bard,” Geralt says. “They’re prone to exaggeration.” 

“Very true,” Calla says, and there’s a smile curling her lips, now, that goes beyond pure propriety. Geralt’s pretty sure that he can see Jaskier glaring at him out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t possibly drag his attention away from this lovely noblewoman, could he? That would just be rude. “So tell me, Geralt of Rivia. What use does a witcher have for a Redanian noble?” 

“Not much,” Geralt answers. 

“And yet you travel with one?” 

“I travel with a bard called Jaskier,” Geralt points out, reaching for his wine again. “Nobility doesn’t really come into it.” 

Calla tsks. “Come now,” she says. “I can’t imagine that you keep him around for his _songs_. What use would a witcher have for _songs?_ ” 

Geralt thinks about the first time Jaskier sang to them in Kaer Morhen, the first time he sang that song of grief and loss and beautiful, aching majesty – but that’s a memory that this inquisitive noblewoman has no claim to. “He makes himself useful,” he says, quashing the upwards twist of his lips with long practice. “He’s surprisingly good at washing blood out of clothes. And at stitching up wounds.” 

Calla’s eyebrows are practically at her hairline, now. “Stitching up wounds?” 

Geralt nods, then rolls up his sleeve, the brush of the silk smooth and liquid against his skin. He shows Calla a thick scar on his forearm, a permanent reminder of a brush with… something, he’s not actually entirely sure what. Maybe a werewolf’s claws? It was a long time ago. “This was the first one he stitched up for me,” he says, and almost unconsciously Calla’s long fingers come to brush carefully across the scar. “Nearly vomited twice and complained more than I did, but did a decent job.” 

“I wasn’t aware that they taught surgery as part of the Seven Liberal Arts,” Calla says, a little faintly. 

Geralt glances over at Jaskier finally, sees him staring back, expression caught somewhere between embarrassment and what Geralt thinks might be joy. “They don’t,” Geralt says. “But he’s a quick study.” 

“That much is obvious,” Calla says thoughtfully, and taps the scar on his arm one final time. She takes a dainty mouthful of her venison, washes it down with an equally-tasteful sip of wine. “How much of the songs are true?” she asks, after a moment. “Given that apparently you’re more likely to drag the Viscount out of a _bog_ than rescue him from the hands of wicked evil-doers.” She laughs a little at her own joke, then sips her wine once more. 

Geralt thinks about the sword that burst slick with blood from the chest of an elf whose name he’ll never know, about the crackle of Yennefer’s magic in the air, about holding Ciri close as she shook and trembled in the moments after. None of that seems particularly appropriate for the current scenario, where a wealthy woman wants him to entertain her with cutting anecdotes and witty banter. “If anything sounds too good to be true,” he says, “it probably is.” 

“So you _didn’t_ battle a pack of wolves on the eve of the winter solstice under a blood moon?” 

Geralt pauses, winces. “It was a small pack.” 

“What about the sorcerer’s mutant bear that terrorised a young girl in mountains to the north?” Calla asks. 

Geralt didn’t even know Jaskier had written a song about that one. “She was twenty,” he corrects. “Not a young girl.” 

Calla gives him an assessing look. “I think our definitions of _too good to be true_ differ somewhat,” she says. “I’d wager that you’re actually at least half as noble as his songs make you out to be, aren’t you?” 

“I wouldn’t say that.” 

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Calla says, amusement back in her voice. “The wayward son of nobility and his noble mutant protector. What a _fascinating_ story.” Her gaze flickers down the table to Jaskier, now deep in conversation with the Countess, a smile playing around his lips, hands gesturing broadly like they do when he’s storytelling. “It’s certainly not the same story his family spins.” 

Geralt stills. “His family?”

Calla hums, and returns to her venison. “His parents don’t speak half so admiringly of their eldest’s… exploits.” 

Jaskier doesn’t talk about his family much. What little Geralt’s gleaned over the years is roughly along the lines of: they don’t get along. Given that Jaskier’s spent two decades not going by viscount-anything and traipsing around after a witcher, he imagines that Jaskier’s life choices have probably got something to do with it. “They don’t know what they’re talking about,” he says bluntly. 

Calla’s eyebrow arches. “He’s their son,” she says. “Do you really think you know him better?” 

Jaskier laughs, eyes bright, smile beaming. He shines brighter than anyone else at this gaudy table. “I do,” Geralt answers. 

Calla’s watching him. “I imagine so,” she says. “And how long exactly have you been sharing his bed? I’m assuming that’s a fairly recent development, given that the last time I saw him, his mother only blustered about the trail of outraged wives and daughters he left behind. I imagine that she would have had _significantly_ more to say about him taking a witcher as a lover.” 

Geralt looks at her, jaw tight, and doesn’t respond. 

“Not that I would agree with her,” Calla says, continuing with her meal like they’re talking about the weather. “Alys is many things. Tolerant is not one of them.” 

Geralt thinks he preferred this conversation when it was about Jaskier falling into ditches. 

“But that’s by the by,” Calla says, sips her wine. “Tell me, Geralt of Rivia. What do you make of Nilfgaard’s annexation of Cintra?” 

This, Geralt can do.

They talk about international politics for a while, then about crop rotation—Calla is surprisingly knowledgeable, which Geralt guesses makes sense for someone whose worldly wealth is based in agriculture—and then she tells him the story of her first disastrous hunt with the Temerian royal family in exchange for a brief anecdote about Geralt’s first encounter with an alghoul. It’s a surprisingly pleasant conversation, all things considered, and even if Geralt is being subtly judged and insulted in that strange, subtle way that nobles have, it passes the time. He keeps one eye on Jaskier, who’s drinking steadily but doesn’t seem to be getting _too_ horrifically drunk, and Geralt knows that he should probably slow down, should probably make sure that he can keep them safe, keep _Jaskier_ safe, but the wine is rich and the food is good and Jaskier is happy. 

It’s intoxicating, all of it. 

The party breaks up earlier than Geralt expected, most of the assembled nobility tipsy but no one the kind of apocalyptically drunk that he’s come to expect from fancy parties. That makes sense, he supposes – there’s another three nights of this to come, and even noble blood won’t keep you from a hangover. Calla presses the winestains from her lips with a delicately-embroidered kerchief, then stands, brushing out her skirts. “An unexpected pleasure,” she says, and offers him her hand. 

Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes, schools his expression to stillness, and presses the expected kiss to her gloved fingers. 

Calla studies him a moment longer, her expression unreadable, then nods to herself and goes, sweeping out of the private dining hall like she owns the place.

Nobles. 

Geralt hears soft footsteps at his side, and Jaskier’s shoulder bumps against his, firm and solid. “So,” Jaskier says, smelling of warmth and wine and a heady dose of lust. “I see you met the lady of the manor.” 

Geralt blinks. “She’s a bit old to be the Marchioness, isn’t she?” 

“Oh, that’s not Marcian’s wife,” Jaskier says, linking his arm through Geralt’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Jaskier’s steps are a little unsteady as they leave the hall, his gait a little too off-balanced to be entirely sober, and Geralt takes his weight, lets him lean, ignores the inquisitive glances the casual intimacy gets them and just listens to the soft warmth in the pit of his heart. “His wife died in childbirth, about twelve years ago, I think,” Jaskier says softly. “Poor woman – she was kind, very kind.” Jaskier’s quiet for a moment, and Geralt steers them through the manor’s corridors, following the route he can just about remember back to their suite. “Left Marcian with a son and two daughters. Their grandmother stepped in to help raise them – that’s who you were talking to.” 

“Marcian’s mother?”

Jaskier nods. “I know her only by reputation,” he says. “She’s supposed to be pretty terrifying.” 

“She seemed fine.” 

Jaskier laughs softly, richly, the smell of wine and honeycakes on his breath. “Of course she did,” he says, and squeezes Geralt’s arm. “I’m sorry I left you to the mercies of the nobility,” he says in a voice that he probably thinks is very quiet and very subtle. “I haven’t seen Violetta in _years_. We had a lot to catch up on.” 

And there it is again, that twist in Geralt’s heart. “The Countess de Stael?” 

Jaskier hums his agreement, then whistles a bar or two of something that Geralt is pretty sure is one of the lovesongs he wrote the first time the Countess broke his heart. 

“I thought she hurt you,” Geralt says, then brings them around a corner and comes face to face with the door to their rooms. “Didn’t expect you to be so… friendly.” 

Jaskier waves a hand as Geralt gets them inside. “All water under the bridge,” he says breezily. “You know how it is. Romance and heartbreak, it’s all part of the package. A bard has to have something to compose about, the patron has to have something to discuss dramatically with her ladies at the next society ball.” 

The door closes behind them, leaving them alone. “So it was an act?” Geralt asks, frowning. “Everything you felt for her, it was… a performance?” 

Jaskier’s nose wrinkles and he lets go of Geralt’s arm, starts shrugging out of his doublet – which has somehow managed to be completely unbuttoned over the course of dinner. “I wouldn’t put it quite that bluntly,” he says, “but yeah, I guess. Noble courtship is all about performance, the right words at the right time, picking the right flowers, composing the right sonnet.” He drops the very expensive—Geralt knows—doublet on the floor, then strips out of his shirt and starts on his trousers. “It’s a dance, I suppose you could say,” he says almost meditatively, pushing his trousers down his hips and kicking them off, starting on his smallclothes. “You have to know the basic steps, but it’s the emotion and the flourishes that make you a true dancer.” 

Geralt’s getting a little lost in the metaphors. “Are you—” he starts, then pauses, licks his lips. “Are _we_ dancing?” 

Jaskier’s wearing nothing but his skin, now, and he looks to Geralt, cheeks flushed, hair wild. His eyes are so very soft. “No, Geralt,” he says, then reaches out, takes Geralt’s hand, pulls him towards the bedroom. “We’re not dancing, we’re not performing. At least, _I’m_ not – and if you are, then I’m going to be _very_ offended.” 

Geralt lets Jaskier push him down so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, lets him settle astride his waist, closes his eyes for a moment as Jaskier’s hands card through his hair, as Jaskier presses kisses to his forehead. Jaskier tips his chin up, claims his mouth, and Geralt feels the branded sigil on his tongue, hears the soft whisper of his sigh, tastes venison and alcohol. “Gods,” Jaskier whispers, his long fingers running across the silk fabric stretched across Geralt’s shoulders. “Do you have _any idea_ how good you look in this? It’s very distracting trying to absorb some very tasty gossip about that hack Valdo when you’re just sitting there like that, so fucking _stunning_.” He laughs, breathy and warm against Geralt’s lips. “And all mine.” 

Geralt stills. “Yours,” he says, too quiet. “Your… trusted companion.” 

Jaskier pulls back, his fingers spreading broad across Geralt’s chest. He’s frowning. “Geralt?” 

Geralt tries not to wince. “That’s how you introduced me to Marcian,” he says, his hands resting lightly on Jaskier’s bare hips, unmoving. “As your trusted companion.” He’s fully clothed—as much as these scraps of expensive fabrics really count as clothing—while Jaskier sits in his lap naked as the day he was born – but somehow _Geralt’s_ the one feeling exposed. He grinds his teeth together, looks away, wishes he’d kept his fucking mouth shut. “It’s nothing.” 

“No, no, no, no, no,” Jaskier says, grabbing his chin, turning his face back. “It’s clearly not nothing. You _are_ my trusted companion, Geralt. You’re also my lover, my fucking _beloved_. You’re the man I want to spend as much of the rest of my life with as I can.” He pauses, leans forward slowly, presses a tentative kiss to Geralt’s lips. “But you said that this is ours,” he continues, softer, his arms going around Geralt’s shoulders, holding on tight. “That no one else had a right to it.” He falters. “I didn’t know if you wanted him to know, if you wanted _any_ of them to know.” 

The sick feeling is fading from Geralt’s gut. “I told you I didn’t give a fuck who you told,” he points out, his hands spreading wider across Jaskier’s hips. 

Jaskier snorts. “That was in the context of a house full of witchers and sorceresses,” he says. “I didn’t know if that extended to random members of the aristocracy.” 

“It’s in whatever fucking context you want,” Geralt says, and feels something settle in his heart. He tugs Jaskier closer, presses one hand to the small of his back, brings the other up to wrap around the back of his neck and pull him into a heated kiss. 

Jaskier breaks away, flashes him a wicked grin. “Does this mean that tomorrow I can tell a room full of drunk nobles that I’m bedding the White Wolf?”

Geralt huffs a laugh, presses his lips to Jaskier’s throat. “Pretty sure at least some of them know already.” 

Jaskier pulls a face. “How?” he asks, a little shrill. “We’ve been here less than half a day!” 

Geralt shrugs. “Don’t know. But Calla asked me how long we’d been fucking.” 

“She did?!”

“Not in those words.” 

“Naturally,” Jaskier says with a bark of laughter. Geralt’s surrounded by him, by the pitter-fast thud of his heartbeat, by the warmth of his body and the smell of his arousal. “I guess I wasn’t exactly subtle with the choice of bedroom,” Jaskier muses as Geralt slowly grinds his hips upwards, Jaskier’s breath starting to catch in hitching gasps. “Servants talk. And we did shag within earshot of the footman back at Triss’ house. Pretty sure I said your name a few times.”

Geralt smiles against his throat. “You usually do. Sometimes you sing it.”

Jaskier makes an offended noise and shoves back against Geralt’s shoulders, peeling them apart. “Stop that,” he says, pushing Geralt down so he’s lying flat on his back on the bed. “You just sat through a whole evening of small talk for my benefit. I want to appropriately thank you.” 

Geralt props himself up on his elbows, watching as Jaskier’s nimble fingers make short work of the laces of his trousers. “You’re naked,” he rumbles. “That’s thanks enough.” 

Jaskier slips off his lap, slides to his knees on the floor, settles between Geralt’s legs and looks up at him with a distinctly wicked smile. “I mean, I can stop if you want,” he says, lips red, eyes shadowed, and starts stripping Geralt of his boots and trousers. “We can just go to sleep, get some rest. I don’t mind.” 

“I can _smell_ that you’d mind.” 

Jaskier snorts. “Something I _don’t_ miss about courting nobles,” he says, wrapping his hand around Geralt’s cock. “It’d be nice to be a bit more unreadable now and then, you know? Instead of my every emotion being apparently broadcast to the world in how I fucking _smell_.” 

“Are you going to do anything with that mouth other than _talk?_ ” Geralt growls. 

Jaskier’s lips curl in a sly smile. “Think of it as a lesson,” he says, pressing a kiss to the inside of Geralt’s thigh, just the fleeting brush of his tongue. “Use your words. Tell me what you want.” 

Geralt groans. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“I would _never_ kid about something like this,” Jaskier says, eyes wide and sincere. 

Geralt breathes out, pushes himself up further on his elbows, studies Jaskier’s pink cheeks, his blown-black pupils, his slick, parted lips. “I want you,” he says, and he meant it to be lustful, to be heady, but he’s pretty sure that instead it’s just full of all the fucking love he can feel boiling up in his heart. “Any way you’ll have me.” 

Jaskier’s eyes flash, and he lets out a sharp breath. “Fuck, Geralt,” he says, a little strangled. “I am going to give you the best fucking blowjob of your _life_.” 

“I don’t know,” Geralt says, doing his best to look appropriately doubtful. “I’ve had some pretty good blowjobs before.” 

Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he says, somewhere between lustful and fond, and gets to work. 

In the morning, Jaskier isn’t woken by the faint but unmistakable sound of the door to their suite opening and closing. What he _is_ woken by, however, is Geralt immediately springing into full-on protect mode, shoving Jaskier behind him with an undignified and very surprised yelp, leaping to the foot of the bed and grabbing his sword out of their tangle of belongings. “Stay down,” Geralt growls, still fully naked, and flings the bedroom door open, springs out into the main room of their suite. 

Jaskier runs a hand through his hair, sags back against the pillows. “Let me guess,” he calls, fighting a smile. “You killed the breakfast tray.” 

There’s silence for a moment, and then Geralt reappears, sword in one hand, tray laden with food in the other. If witchers looked sheepish, Jaskier would definitely describe his expression as sheepish right about now. “Hungry?” Geralt asks. 

“Famished,” Jaskier answers, and takes the tray from him. 

Geralt sheathes his sword, then settles down on the bed next to him and they share breakfast. 

Before all of this, before Jaskier saved Eskel’s life and nearly got kidnapped by Nilfgaard, before he arrived at Kaer Morhen and tumbled into Lambert’s bed, before he shouted at Geralt and kissed Geralt and _loved_ Geralt, Jaskier never would be imagined that this could be his life: sprawled out naked together in bed, eating fruit and pastries, dropping crumbs in the sheets and trading gentle, lazy kisses in the light of a springtime morning. It’s so… _intimate_ , intimate in a way that Jaskier didn’t expect. The sex, yeah, he imagined that, and he imagined the kisses, searingly hot – but he never thought about this, about the stain of berry juice on Geralt’s lips, the softness of his expression, the gentle skim of his fingers across Jaskier’s calf. 

All of a sudden, Jaskier realises that he could spend the rest of his life like this. 

Geralt pauses, frowns at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

Jaskier shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” he says, then smiles. “I’m just happy.” 

Geralt doesn’t answer, just hums deep in his throat. 

“So,” Jaskier says, taking the tray and depositing it on the floor beside the bed. “Marcian mentioned yesterday giving us a tour of the house and the grounds.” 

Geralt hums again. “I assume that we can’t tell him to fuck off and just spend the whole day in bed?” 

Jaskier laughs. “Probably not,” he says. “Might be a bit rude. Especially given that I imagine he’s got a lot on his plate already, so taking time out to show us around is actually pretty high praise, you know. I might even go so far as to say it’s an _honour_.” 

Geralt groans, drags Jaskier across the bed towards him, rolls on top of him and presses him into the mattress. “I can think of better things for us to be doing,” he murmurs into Jaskier’s neck, tugs Jaskier’s legs around his hips with a jerk. Jaskier laughs, surprised, and Geralt catches his lips in a kiss, slides his hand under his arse and somehow manages to pull him even closer. 

Tension’s already building in Jaskier’s gut, tight and coiling, and he arches into Geralt’s touch, kisses him fiercely – and, oh, thank all the gods, he’s still slick and relaxed enough from last night’s exertions for Geralt to adjust the angle of his hips and slide into him with barely any effort. “ _Oh_ ,” Jaskier gasps, winds a hand into Geralt’s hair, lets his head fall back. 

It’s slow and lazy, heated skin and gasping breaths and languid movements, and when Jaskier comes, it’s almost a surprise. He pants softly as Geralt keeps going, face buried in the crook of his neck, then when he’s caught his breath, he presses a soft kiss to Geralt’s temple and whispers, “Come on, witcher. Come for me.” 

Geralt makes a tight, hoarse noise in the back of his throat, and his hips stutter once more. 

They lie there for a little while, tangled in each other, sweaty and sticky, until Jaskier laughs, elbows Geralt off him, and goes to grab a cloth. Jaskier pulls on Geralt’s trousers and goes to call for a bath, and then they wash, slow and warm and relaxed, no stress, no pressure, no innkeepers chasing them out of their paid-for room, no Nilfgaardians, no soldiers in rose-embroidered livery. Jaskier finds Geralt’s silk shirt, contemplates whether it would be _too_ scandalous to wear it under his doublet for the day – then decides he doesn’t care, and pulls it on. 

They’re actually both decent when a knock comes at the door and one of the manor’s servants enters, nods to them both. “The Marquess requests your presence.” 

Jaskier watches Geralt finish pulling his boots on. “Ready?” he asks, bright as he can, feeling the slip-slide of Geralt’s silk shirt under his cherry-red doublet. 

“Ready,” Geralt says, and doesn’t _smile_ , exactly, but there’s an uptick at the corner of his lips that warms Jaskier’s heart. 

Marcian meets them in the manor’s grand entryway, all marble and golden stone and elaborate tapestries. He’s expansive and affectionate, pulling Jaskier into a _hug_ , of all things, clasping Geralt’s forearm and pressing pleasantries on them both. He guides them around the manor, the halls, the studies, the library—oh, the _library_ —the ballroom, the second ballroom, and then they go to the stables, they’re presented with horses readily saddled. Jaskier sees Geralt bristle at the idea of anyone but him saddling Roach, but he manages not to murder anyone and, well, Roach seems happy enough – and Marcian takes them out into the grounds, shows them the manicured gardens and the groomed woods, the topiary and the lake and the bubbling springs, the lovers’ nooks and flowerbeds full of springtime blooms. 

It’s… a lot, if Jaskier’s honest, and it vaguely reminds him of the day that Vesemir took him around Kaer Morhen. From the look on Geralt’s face, he’s feeling the same – but he’s still here, trotting gamely behind Marcian and Jaskier, attentive and listening and somehow managing _not_ to look like he’s as horrifically bored as, Jaskier knows, he probably is. 

He catches Geralt’s eye as Marcian rambles about his great-great-great-grandfather, for some reason, and the soft amusement in Geralt’s expression sets his heart racing. 

“So,” Marcian says as they ride back towards the manor, the sun sliding towards late afternoon. “What do you think?”

“I think that I should have spent more time with you at Oxenfurt,” Jaskier says wryly. “I could have made a wonderful Marchioness de Göttenfal, you know.” 

Behind them, Geralt snorts. 

Marcian laughs. “You would have given Beatrix a fight and a half, I’m sure,” he says. “Although I think she would have won.” 

Jaskier smiles. “She definitely would have,” he says. “She always got what she wanted.” He remembers Beatrix, remembers her coming to visit with a chaperone and her two younger sisters, remembers conspiring with the sisters to distract the chaperone so that Marcian and Beatrix could sneak in a few hours of privacy. He led that chaperone on a merry dance across Oxenfurt, always promising that, oh, I’m _sure_ they’ll be in the next quad, this is where Marcian _always_ spends his mornings – oh, he’s not there? Well, I’m sure if you just come with me, we’ll figure something out. 

Jaskier’s pretty sure he ended up sleeping with the chaperone, but it’s long enough ago that he can’t be entirely sure. 

They come trotting into the stables, and stablehands flood forward to take their horses. Geralt, predictably, glares at the boy who tries to take Roach from him, insists on going with her into the stables – and Jaskier just watches, trying and probably failing to keep the fond smile off his face. 

He can feel Marcian studying him. “I still miss her,” he says after a moment. “Every day. It’s been nearly thirteen years, now – you would think I would have moved on by now.” He shrugs. “Sometimes Mother tells me that I need to move on, that Bea would want me to be happy in the here and now, rather than forever living in her memory. But I knew love with her, once, _real_ love, and I just don’t see how anything could measure up to that.” 

Jaskier’s heart catches in his chest. “Marcian—” 

Marcian’s smile is a little sad. “I didn’t think you’d understand, Julian,” he says. “I’ve seen you romance _so many people_ across the Continent, at banquets and feasts and contests – Violetta, I’ve seen you two scream at each other! I assumed that this guest you were bringing with you was just another paramour, another flirtation.” He pauses, peers back into the stables where Geralt is looking mortally offended at the, Jaskier presumes, substandard brush he’s being offered by the beleaguered stablehand. “He’s no flirtation, is he?” 

Jaskier’s mouth is dry. “No,” he says, his jaw tight. “No, he’s not.” 

Marcian beams. “I’m pleased for you,” he says, clasping Jaskier’s shoulder tight. “It… complicates matters, somewhat. But I’m pleased for you.” 

Jaskier frowns. “Complicates matters?” he asks. “What does _that_ mean?” 

“Oh, nothing for you to worry about now,” Marcian says, releasing Jaskier’s shoulder. “I’ll have an early supper brought to your rooms, given that I don’t imagine you’ll have much time to eat during the banquet. I’m _really_ looking forward to your performance – I haven’t heard you for a long time. And Matheu is excited to meet you.” 

“Marcian,” Jaskier says, a strangely clammy feeling surging up his throat. “Complicates _what?_ ” 

Marcian just smiles, broad and jovial, and turns away. He goes back into the manor, his step light, his head held high – and there was no threat in his voice, no aggression, no hatred, nothing to suggest that whatever _matter_ has been _complicated_ is anything bad, anything dangerous, fuck, Marcian could just be planning some elaborate thank you, could be planning another fucking _seating plan_ , just because a _matter_ has been _complicated_ it doesn’t mean that Jaskier’s going to end up in a cell again, frozen and helpless and _trapped_ —

“Jaskier?”

Jaskier abruptly realises that he’s shaking. 

Geralt’s hands are large and warm and steadying. “Jaskier,” he says, soft and level. “Jaskier, what’s wrong?” 

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jaskier says faintly. 

“Jaskier—”

“No one knows we’re here,” Jaskier says shortly. “Fuck, Geralt, no one knows we’re here. We just… _left_ , didn’t tell Triss where we were going, fuck, didn’t tell Eskel or Yennefer or anyone. If they do something, if they hurt us, no one would know, _no one would know_.” 

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, short and sharp. He steps forward, heedless of the stables behind them, heedless of the manor’s staff, presses his forehead against Jaskier’s, wraps him in his arms, holds him close and warm and constant. “Jaskier, no one’s going to hurt you. No one’s going to _touch_ you.” He pauses, crowds even closer, and it should be too much, it should be the last thing that Jaskier needs, but he can feel Geralt’s breath against his lips, feel the heat of his body, the brush of his hair. “He’s not here, Jaskier,” Geralt says softly, so fucking _softly_. “Aldebraan isn’t here.” 

Jaskier closes his eyes, grits his teeth. “Shit,” he says, and leaves it at that. 

“Come on,” Geralt says, steps away a little but not so much that Jaskier can’t feel his presence, can’t feel his comfort. “Let’s get inside.” 

Jaskier lets Geralt lead him back to their room. He follows numbly, emptily, feeling like a fucking child as he’s led by the hand through the corridors of the manor, and by the time Geralt closes the door to their suite behind him, he doesn’t know what to think any more. He still sort of wants to vomit. 

Geralt sits him down on the loveseat, kneels in front of him, grips his still-shaking hands tight. “Tell me what happened.” 

“Marcian said something,” Jaskier says, then shakes his head, huffs out a breath. “ _Fuck_. Marcian said fucking _nothing_ , some throwaway comment about me being in love with you _complicating_ things, and it doesn’t mean anything, I _know_ it doesn’t mean anything, I’m just being fucking _paranoid_.” 

Geralt doesn’t say anything, just holds his hands, holds them tight. 

Jaskier lets out a long breath. “Well, fuck,” he says shortly. 

“Do you want to leave?” Geralt asks. 

Jaskier pulls a face. “We can’t just _leave_.” 

“We can,” Geralt says. “We can leave right now. Grab our bags, go get Roach, get the fuck out of here. I don’t care about fancy parties or offending anyone. I don’t care if I _complicate_ anything. If you don’t want to be here anymore, we don’t have to be here.” 

Jaskier tries for a smile. He knows it’s weak, but it’s genuine. “You’re just saying that because you hate fancy parties.” 

Geralt smiles. “It’s your choice,” he says. 

Jaskier breathes in, breathes out. “I want to stay,” he says shortly. “I want to stay, and I want to play the fuck out of Marcian’s banquet. And I’m just being paranoid, I _know_ I’m just being paranoid because of that dickhead Aldebraan, fuck him, like _fuck_ am I going to let him control my life. So I’m fucking staying.” He pauses for a second. “And you are going to be where I can see you _all fucking night_ , okay? With your scary face and your big witcher muscles on _full_ display. And I’m going to shout it to the fucking _rooftops_ that I’m yours and you’re mine, so they _all_ fucking know that you will fucking _murder_ them if they _dare_ try _anything_.” 

Geralt hums, and just holds on. 

Jaskier sighs, slumps forward, presses his forehead into Geralt’s shoulder. “Fucking arsehole lunatic fucking _dick_.” 

Geralt huffs a laugh, and Jaskier feels his hand slide into his hair. 

“Thank you,” Jaskier says softly, turns his head, kisses Geralt’s neck. 

Geralt’s quiet for a moment. “We’ll send a message to Triss,” he says. “Tell her where we are, when we’ll be back. Even if she’s still in Kaedwen for another few weeks, Eskel said he’d come by when he was done in Redania. Someone will know.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Jaskier says, pulling back, elbows digging into his thighs. “I trust you, Geralt. Pretty sure that even if Marcian _is_ planning to lock me up and throw away the key, you can take him.” 

Geralt studies him. “Would it make you feel safer,” he says slowly, “if someone else knew that we’re here? Triss, or Eskel? Yen?” 

Jaskier _hates_ the answer. “Yeah,” he bites out. “Yeah, I think it would.” 

Geralt shrugs. “Then we’ll send a message. It’s not difficult. The Marquess was going on about the speed of his riders earlier, wasn’t he? A quick rider could make that journey in a day or so.” 

Jaskier purses his lips. “Sorry,” he says, jaw tight, then sighs. “And we were having such a good day.” 

Geralt shifts, comes to sit next to him on the loveseat, slides his arm around Jaskier’s waist. “It’s still a good day,” he says. “And you have nothing to apologise for. You nearly died. That fucks you up.” 

“Doesn’t fuck _you_ up.” 

Geralt’s hand spasms tight against Jaskier’s hip. “ _You_ nearly dying fucks me up,” he says quietly. “You nearly dying makes me so fucking scared, Jaskier. I need you to be safe, I’ve told you that before. I can’t lose you.” 

“You won’t,” Jaskier says. “You can’t. You’d have to scrape me off like a fucking _limpet_ to get rid of me.” – and all of a sudden, all his energy is just _gone_. He slumps against Geralt’s side, trusts Geralt to catch him, to hold him, to not let him fall. “Shit,” he says flatly. “Now I’m going to have to go prance around in front of a hundred guests, and all I want to do is sleep.” 

Geralt hums. “Like I said: we can still leave.” 

Jaskier laughs. “Now you are just trying to get out of the fancy party.” 

“Is it working?” 

“It is not.” 

Geralt sighs. 

Jaskier gets to his feet, steadies himself, then meets Geralt’s concerned gaze and flashes him a smile. “Right,” he says. “I’m going to get changed because I can’t perform wearing clothes that smell like sweat and horse – and because I think I might fall asleep if I stay sitting down. Need to warm up, too. I think all the adrenaline has thrown my pitch off, ugh, I feel so bloody _shaky_.” 

“Sing for me,” Geralt says. 

Jaskier pauses. “Sing what?” 

“Anything,” Geralt says, then pauses, says softer, “The song you wrote at Kaer Morhen. Sing that.” 

So Jaskier does. 

He goes to choose a performing outfit, bright green and gold, and sings of the mountains and the sunset. He strips out of his clothes, washes himself in the fresh basin of water, and sings of the stables, the horses, the cobbles. He dresses, retrieves his lute, picks out a few notes on the strings, and sings of the witchers and their battered, broken hearts. It calms him, as Geralt fucking _knew_ it would. It settles his nerves, it steadies him, and by the time he’s eaten the supper one of the servants brought, by the time the manor starts to fill with the sounds of guests and celebrations, by the time Geralt has written a note and sent it with the fastest rider the Marquess has, the fear is all but gone, tucked away in the back of his mind, boxed up and hidden. 

“Are you ready?” Geralt asks, his head tilted a little. 

_It… complicates matters, somewhat._

“Of _course_ I’m ready,” Jaskier says, beaming, and leads the way.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having an off couple of days, so sorry if I've been rubbish at replying to comments! This chapter took a little longer than I hoped to write - sorry for that, too. ~~Can you tell I'm British?~~
> 
> Actual chapter-related note: in my head, the woman that we see Jaskier with at the betrothal feast in episode 4 is the Countess de Stael. I think this is probably absolutely not the case (canon? what's that?!), but that's who I'm imagining when I'm writing her!

Geralt stands at the back of the ballroom, tucked away in the shadows, and watches Jaskier perform. 

The Marquess de Göttenfal, as it turns out, knows how to put on a coming-of-age feast. It’s only the first day of the three day celebrations and already the ballroom is decked out in the family’s colours, elaborate flower arrangements strewn across the tables, the wine flowing and the food coming in the hands of wave after wave of black-clad servants. Geralt hates to think just how _much_ was spent on this, and the fact that it’ll all happen again tomorrow, if he’s honest, makes him feel a little ill. There are people starving all across the Continent and here he is, watching as a nobleman with a large belly and even larger whiskers take single bites of chicken legs and then toss everything else onto the floor. 

And no one seems to think that that’s anything unusual _at all_. 

Geralt shifts, folds his arms, and looks back to Jaskier. 

There’s a low dais at one end of the ballroom, far enough away from the tables of the nobility that the musicians installed there can avoid all the thrown chicken legs and spilled wine. There’s been a small band playing there since before Geralt followed Jaskier in, maybe an hour or so ago, now, but it only took a few words and one of Jaskier’s bright, beaming smiles before they were in the palm of his hand as much as Geralt is. Now, Jaskier plays with the other musicians like they’re lifelong friends, music rippling out across the ballroom, and the assembled nobles are, well, more than a little transfixed – and not just because of the soft whisper of magic that rustles Geralt’s medallion against his chest. 

Pride quietly swells in Geralt’s heart. 

What’s most reassuring is the fact that, as the evening spins onwards, Jaskier relaxes more and more into the music, the performance, the joy that Geralt knows he finds in this life. For the first few songs, even if none of the Marquess’ guests could tell, Jaskier was wound tight, heart beating too fast, sour stink of fear coming off him in waves. It was in his face, too, a narrowness to his eyes, a thinness to his lips, but the hours pass and the banquet gets rowdier and Jaskier settles, the fear-stink fading, his heartbeat slowing to its usual performance rate. His smile loses its tightness, becomes genuine, beaming, brighter than anything Geralt’s seen on his lips since he nearly fucking _collapsed_ in Marcian’s stables – and then he catches Geralt’s eye across the tables, smiles even wider, and winks. 

Geralt leans back against the wall and suppresses the answering smile that threatens to curl his lips. 

Jaskier turns his attention to a trio of young women sitting together at one of the lower tables, adds an extra note of yearning into the upbeat love song he’s halfway through, and Geralt watches, amused, as one of the women dramatically presses her hand to her forehead and sags against her friend’s shoulder. Jaskier, of course, just spins away with a laugh and a song. He’s happy. He’s flirting and he’s smiling and he’s _happy_. 

Geralt’s going to make sure he stays that way. 

Geralt watches Marcian, not obviously, not blatantly, no, he doesn’t glare and glower, he _observes_. The Marquess sits at high table, Calla on his left, a youth that Geralt imagines is his son on his right. He’s smiling as much as Jaskier is, cheeks flushed with drink and good food, with happiness. There’s no tension in his body, in his expression, in the movement of his hands and the rumble of his voice – and, sure, he could be an expert at hiding it, could be a true psychopath, a true monster, but in Geralt’s experience, if humans are planning something bad, they _broadcast_ it, in their body language, in their scent, in the tones of their voice. They’re not subtle, humans. Especially noble ones, because the noble ones are used to getting their own way, used to being told that there’s nothing and no one in this world that matters more than them. 

Anyway, Geralt’s pretty sure he knows what exactly it is about him that Marcian finds _complicated._ He’s a witcher, monstrous and wicked. Jaskier is anything but. 

Geralt’s gaze flickers back to Jaskier, just for a moment, and feels warmth curling in his gut. 

“Oh, you _do_ like to brood, don’t you?” 

There’s a cup of wine in the Countess de Stael’s hand as she sways towards him, clearly more than a little drunk. Geralt stiffens instinctively, always a little wary around drunken nobles, but all she does is reach out, grip his forearm, squeeze lightly – then practically do a doubletake, blinking, and squeezing again. “Oh,” she says, eyebrows disappearing into her hair. “Oh, that’s _firm_.” 

Geralt carefully detaches his arm. “Can I help you, my lady?” he asks, as polite as he can manage. 

The Countess waves her hand. “Violetta, please,” she says, then settles her hand on his arm again and practically plasters herself against his side. Geralt sort of wants to shrug her off again, but he sighs, tolerates her touch as best he can. He’s getting the impression that she’s not exactly the best at reading subtle hints – and he probably shouldn’t cause a scene in the middle of the damn banquet. “I saw you over here,” the Countess continues, “looming so deliciously in the corner, watching my darling Julian like you just wanted to _devour_ him – and I knew I had to get to know you a little better.” Something flashes in her gaze. “Find out a little more about the beastly monster hunter who stole my favourite poet away from me.” 

Geralt is already uncomfortable with this conversation. “Jaskier does what he wants,” he says, a little rough. “Not sure I had much to do with it.” 

“That is very true,” she sighs, her fingernails tapping against Geralt’s forearm. “I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed. There was a part of me that hoped he’d come back to me, in the end – because he belongs in a court, don’t you agree? Among _richness_ and _comfort_.” 

Geralt’s lips twist. “He belongs wherever he wants to belong,” he says gruffly. 

The Countess snorts, drinks from her cup. “We would spend whole nights in bed together while he told me stories of his travels with you, witcher,” she says. “The flea-ridden inns, the sleeping in the wild woods, being filthy and dirty and _uncomfortable_ , all the time.” She shudders dramatically. “Admittedly, there is a romance to the whole conceit – but I never imagined that it would be a kind of romance that Julian was seriously inspired by. He’s always done his finest work in intellectual circles. There can’t be much mental stimulation involved in _hunting monsters_.” 

Geralt would like to see her face off against the simplest fucking drowner and then talk about the _lack of mental stimulation_ in his profession. “He seems to cope just fine,” he says. 

“He is a professional, after all,” the Countess says, nodding sagely. “He can spin a sonnet out of even the roughest cloth.” 

Geralt just hums. 

The Countess is silent for a moment, drinking slowly. Her weight is heavy against Geralt’s side, and for a moment he wonders if it would be socially acceptable to just drop her. Probably not, and he sighs, tries to ignore the almost overwhelming smell of her perfume. 

“Do you love him, witcher?” the Countess asks. 

Geralt freezes for a moment. His first instinct is to deflect, to deny, to grunt that that’s none of her fucking business – but then he thinks about _trusted companion_ , about the twist in his stomach, and about Jaskier, his trust, his pride. “I do,” he answers, gruffer than he intended. 

“The old stories say that witchers can’t feel,” the Countess muses. “I was always a little bemused as to why Julian was so _passionate_ about rewriting those tales. I can understand the drama, the exotic _thrill_ of that life of violence and brutality – but I never understood why he was so fixated on trying to make his audiences believe in your _humanity_.” She laughs, takes a sip of her wine. “I suppose he was trying to convince himself, as well. He seems to have succeeded in convincing you _both_.” 

Geralt bristles. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

The Countess blinks up at him. “I’m merely making an observation, witcher,” she says, genuine surprise in her voice. “Julian is so full of life, so full of _love_. That love needs to be reciprocated, needs to be _nourished_. And while you are _extravagantly_ firm in all the best ways and simply a _delight_ to look at, you’re a witcher. Julian must have done a wonderful job of convincing you of your own humanity for you to genuinely believe that you love him – but you _must_ know that that’s an illusion, you _must_.” 

Geralt peels her hand off his arm, drops it like it burned him. “What I feel for him is none of your _fucking business_ ,” he snaps, “but know that I would _die_ for him. And in our life, that’s a very fucking real possibility. I don’t give a shit what you think. I don’t give a shit what _anyone_ in this place thinks. I’m here for Jaskier. He’s the _only_ one that matters to me.” 

Much to Geralt’s surprise, there’s a smile spreading across the Countess’ lips. “Julian said that you were passionate, under all the glowering,” she says, seemingly not bothered at all by the fact she’s got an angry witcher bearing down on her. “He also said that you were gentle, when you wanted to be, gentle and full of heart. I didn’t entirely believe him.” She surveys him, assessing. “I’m glad to see that I was wrong.” 

Geralt pauses. “Are you… _testing_ me?” 

“Of course I’m testing you,” the Countess says, like it’s obvious. “What I say is true, Geralt of Rivia. Julian thrives when he is loved, and it would be remiss of me as his friend, above all else, if I let him waste himself with someone who didn’t return the full intensity of his feelings.” 

Geralt feels like he’s back in Kaer Morhen again, a furious Eskel spitting in his face. If Eskel were a human woman who’s a full head shorter than him and has pearls woven into her hair. 

Geralt can’t really imagine Eskel with pearls woven into his hair. 

“And you do,” the Countess says, her smile turning soft. “You love him. Astonishing though it is, you love him with as much fire as he has _always_ loved you.” She reaches out again – but this time she hesitates before she touches him, and Geralt abruptly realises that she’s waiting for his _permission_. Geralt blinks, completely thrown, then closes the gap between them, lets her take his hand. “You should know something, though, witcher,” she says, and there’s an edge to her voice, now, sharper, harder. “I might not have your strength or your prowess in battle, I might not be able to best any beast I come across – but you live in the world of humanity, too. And if you hurt him, physically, emotionally, if you hurt him in _any way_ , know that I will make you suffer for it.” 

Geralt’s used to being threatened by nobles. What he isn’t used to, however, is being threatened by nobles who want to _protect Jaskier._

“Do we have an understanding, Geralt?” the Countess asks him, her voice arch. 

“I would never hurt him,” Geralt says, finding his voice. “I would never allow him to be hurt if there was anything I could do to prevent it.” – and his gut twists at that, at the memory of Jaskier, a bloody heap in his arms, so still, so broken. He looks across the banquet hall, looks to Jaskier, alive and bright and bursting with song. 

The Countess squeezes his hand, and lets go. “Good,” she says. “Now, my cup is empty and I need another drink if I’m to deal with sitting next to my idiot tablemate for the rest of the evening. Many thanks for your conversation, witcher.” 

Geralt nods, somewhat lost for words, and watches as she disappears back into the throng of nobility. 

_Nobles._

The night spins on, and the audience gets louder and Jaskier’s songs get dirtier. Geralt sort of expected that there would be a similar restraint to last night, thought that the guests would pace themselves, given that this is still only the first night of the celebrations – but he is proved quite comprehensively wrong in that. Two people come stumbling into his quiet corner to throw up before he decides that maybe he should find a different corner, and shifts a little closer to the dais, closer to Jaskier. Not that that’s what he’s trying to do, of course. Not that he’s a fair few cups of wine deep himself, not that all he wants to do is run his hands through Jaskier’s sweaty, performance-messed hair. Not that he wants to kiss him in front of all these watching eyes, slow and deep and full of all the fucking _emotion_ that these rich pricks think he doesn’t have. 

Jaskier catches his eye, flashes him a smile that’s coy and wanting all at once. 

Geralt can’t wait for this banquet to be over.

Things wind up in the small hours of the morning, the nobles stumbled off to bed, the servants moving quietly among the detritus of the feast, cleaning and tidying. Jaskier stays a little longer, talking quietly to the other musicians, passing around a leftover jug of wine, and Geralt stays back, content just to watch. They don’t linger too long, though. 

Jaskier stalks across the hall towards him, cheeks still flushed, lute slung across his back. The hall might be empty of nobles, now, but Geralt still feels the thrill in his belly when Jaskier crowds him up against the wall, fingers digging into his hips, chest pressed to chest, kisses him fiercely, hungrily. “Take me to bed,” he whispers between Geralt’s lips, kisses him again. Geralt can hear the thunder of Jaskier’s heartbeat, high on the adrenaline of his performance, on the exhaustion of the night. “Geralt, take me to bed _right now_.” 

Geralt gives in to his impulses, sinks his hands into Jaskier’s hair. “Are you sure?” he asks, acutely aware of the fact that Jaskier was shaking with fear when they walked into this room, that he was practically _paralysed._

Jaskier laughs, bright and pealing. “I’ve spent the past few hours singing about sex,” he says, “and all that time, all I’ve wanted to do is just get my hands on you. So yes, I’m sure.” He surges forward, kisses Geralt again, harder, stronger. “I want _you_ , Geralt. I want you in every way.” 

How is Geralt supposed to say no to that? 

They don’t get to sleep until the dawn is already breaking over the horizon. 

It must be around midday when Geralt stirs, stretching out against the softness of the sheets and curling tighter around the warm body next to him. Jaskier makes the faintest noise of protest as Geralt pulls him closer, his forehead furrowing as he’s dragged back to wakefulness, but then Geralt’s nosing at the back of his neck, kissing his bare skin, and Jaskier arches back against him with an appreciative noise, his hand slipping back to spread across Geralt’s hip. “Morning,” he says, thick with sleep. 

“Morning,” Geralt rumbles, pressing one last kiss to Jaskier’s shoulder then stilling. “How you feeling?” 

“More than a little sore,” Jaskier says, a lick of laughter in his voice. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to quite how easy it is for you to just throw me around like that.” He shifts, peers through the still-open bedroom door to the main room of their suite. “Pretty sure we tore that tapestry out there. Hope Marcian doesn’t take it out of my fee…” 

Geralt runs his fingers through the hair on Jaskier’s chest, scratching against his skin. “That’s not what I was asking,” he says, softer. 

Jaskier stiffens for a second, then sighs, turns in Geralt’s arms so they’re nose to nose. “I’m sorry,” he says, his fingers dancing across Geralt’s shoulders. “I overreacted. I’ve known Marcian since we were children, and he’s a good man. He’s not Aldebraan, I _know_ that. Whatever it is that’s complicated, whatever it is that he’s planning—if he’s planning something at all!—it’s not going to be… _that_.” He sighs again, shuffles forward a little, rests his forehead against Geralt’s. “I’m sorry you had to put up with that.” 

“I told you yesterday,” Geralt says. “You have nothing to apologise for.” 

Jaskier’s smile is lopsided. “Yeah, but it makes me feel better to apologise.” 

Geralt runs his hand down Jaskier’s ribs, sliding under the sheets to curve over his hip. “You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he says. 

“I know,” Jaskier says, noses forward, presses a soft kiss to Geralt’s lips. He lets out a soft breath, then relaxes into the pillows, the sheets, the blankets. “I saw you talking to Violetta yesterday,” he says, one eyebrow arched. “Which is always a _little_ concerning, you know? The former lover and the current lover.” 

Geralt hums. “Now you know how I feel around you and Yen.” 

Jaskier laughs. “In which case, I’ll remember not to tell you about the whole conversation I had with Yennefer about your arse.” 

Geralt stares at him flatly. “You’re joking.” 

Jaskier waggles his eyebrows. “You’ll never know.” 

Geralt rolls his eyes, slides his hand into Jaskier’s hair and pulls him into a kiss, sour with morning breath, a little sloppy, too much teeth. It’s perfect. Jaskier presses closer, slides his thigh between Geralt’s, his hands wandering across the map of his skin, then laughs softly between his lips, says, “No tours of the estate today, witcher. Nothing to do until tonight. However are we going to fill the hours?” 

“I’m sure we can think of something,” Geralt murmurs. 

Jaskier kisses him again, then rolls him onto his back, straddles his thighs and reaches between them, wraps his long fingers around their cocks and strokes them slowly. Geralt rumbles a groan into Jaskier’s throat, thrusts a little harder into the circle of Jaskier’s fingers, grabs at him, pulls him closer. Jaskier makes an incoherent little noise at the back of his throat, his eyes screwing shut, and his hand starts to jerk them faster. 

Pleasure starts to build in Geralt’s gut, hot and heated.

Which is when the main door to their suite is pushed open, and _the fucking Marquess’s voice_ booms out through their rooms. “Julian! Are you up?” 

Jaskier barks a string of remarkably filthy curses and rolls off Geralt, leaving him hard and exposed to the cool air – not ideal, given that the door to their bedroom is currently wide open and the lord of the fucking manor doesn’t seem to have any understanding of _privacy_. Geralt grabs for the trousers he abandoned last night – but the ones he finds turn out to be Jaskier’s which, well, _that’s_ not going to work, he’d burst every seam in the damn things. 

“Julian? Where are you?” 

“ _Marcian_ ,” Jaskier barks, Geralt’s trousers sitting low and unlaced on his hips, a purple doublet open across his chest with no shirt underneath. He darts to the door, flashes Geralt an apologetic expression, then slips out into the main room, closes the bedroom door behind him with a thud. 

Geralt hears Marcian guffaw, genuinely amused. “My, my, Julian, and here I was, thinking that you’d be _decent_ by now – given that it’s already the afternoon!” 

“I’ll have you know,” Jaskier blusters, and Geralt can just imagine how he’s standing, hands on hips, chin high, “that this is the _height_ of fashion in certain circles.” 

Marcian laughs. “I hate to think what kind of state your witcher is currently in,” he says, wry and dry. 

“Geralt’s just getting dressed,” Jaskier says primly, and Geralt takes that as a sign to dig another pair of trousers out of his pack, pull on a shirt over his medallion and his scars. He shoves his bare feet into his boots, not as willing as Jaskier to be _quite_ so obvious about what they were in the middle of, then presses the heel of his hand against his flagging erection, taking a slow breath and forcibly willing his body to calm down. 

When Geralt steps outside the bedroom, he’s as put-together as he thinks it’s possible to be, under the circumstances. Jaskier, however, seems to have decided to luxuriate in his own debauchery – he’s sprawled out across the loveseat, doublet completely unfastened and chest on full display, and Geralt’s trousers _still_ aren’t done up properly. Marcian doesn’t seem to mind, surprisingly enough, and he’s midway through what Geralt thinks is a complimentary review of last night’s performance. Geralt takes a seat at the small table and sets about devouring the breakfast tray that was clearly left here several hours ago. 

“I knew your reputation, Julian,” Marcian is saying, “but I don’t think I’ve actually heard you perform for, what, seven or eight years now? It’s not that I _doubted_ the truth of the reviews – but you can never really be sure, can you, until you’ve heard it with your own ears? But you were _marvellous_ last night.”

Geralt glances at Jaskier, expecting to see him preening at the praise – and he is, grinning and bright, but there’s something almost subdued about it. “Why, thank you,” Jaskier says, a lick of mockery in his voice. “Always nice to know that my old friends have such _faith_ in me.” 

Marcian handwaves him. “Oh, shush, Julian, you know what I mean. I only hope that you’ve got something equally as exciting in store for tonight – Matheu’s birthday is today, after all. And he is so excited.” He pauses, and Geralt watches as an odd smile flickers across his lips – not malicious, not aggressive, no, if anything it’s… nervous? It’s odd, but it’s not threatening. “He’d like to meet you, actually,” Marcian says. “Would that be possible?” 

“Of course,” Jaskier says, then glances down at himself, laughs. “Maybe give me a chance to have a wash and get dressed properly first? I’m not really… presentable right now.” 

Marcian snorts. “I’ve seen you in worst states of disrepair before,” he says wryly. “The summer solstice at Oxenfurt springs to mind.” 

Jaskier groans. “Don’t _remind_ me. I’ve spent twenty years trying to _forget_ that night.” 

“Haven’t we all?” Marcian says, and chuckles to himself. He pauses, studies Jaskier for a moment, and Geralt doesn’t miss how his gaze flickers to Geralt, just for a moment. “Actually,” he says, slower, “I have something I need to talk to you about, Julian. And ideally I’d like to talk to you alone.” 

Geralt’s hands still on the tabletop. 

Jaskier frowns. “I don’t have any secrets from Geralt, Marcian,” he says, a little stiff. “Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of him.” 

Marcian holds up his hands, placating, calming. “I’m not doubting your bond,” he says, looking between them both. “And I’m not doubting your trustworthiness, Geralt. But I ask that you grant me this favour, Julian.” – and there it is again, that _nervousness._

Jaskier glances to Geralt, just for a moment, his forehead furrowed. “Marcian—”

“ _Please_ , Julian.” 

Jaskier’s lips twist. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, sure.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says. 

Jaskier flashes him a smile. “It’s alright, Geralt,” he says. 

Marcian glances between them again, then must use some of that ingrained noble etiquette to read the mood in the room. He rises a little awkwardly, nods to Geralt, smiles at Jaskier. “When you’re ready, I’ll be in my study,” he says, and sweeps out of the room with all the grace and poise of a man of his stature. He closes the door behind him, quieter than when he entered, and leaves them in silence.

“Are you sure?” Geralt asks immediately, the decimated remains of the breakfast tray forgotten. 

Jaskier sighs. “I’m sure,” he says, but there’s a tension in his voice that wasn’t there before. “He’s my friend, Geralt. I trust him.” 

“Then why did you hesitate?” Geralt asks quietly. 

Jaskier grits his teeth, looks away briefly. “The last time I had such… _fulsome_ praise,” he says slowly, “it was from Aldebraan. Apparently, he was just my _biggest_ fan – that’s why he wanted me for the damn ritual.” He lets out a tight breath. “Just a bit disconcerting, you know? That memory. And then for some reason Marcian wants to separate me from you.” He shakes his head – but the look in his eyes isn’t fear, no, it’s anger. It’s frustration, frustration at _himself_. “But Marcian isn’t a crazy lunatic who wants to steal my tongue. I _know_ he isn’t. And I’m not going to go through the rest of my life being so fucking _afraid_ all the time.” He sighs. “There’s nothing unusual about an old friend wanting to spend some time with me. I just need to remember that.” 

Geralt studies him for a moment. “You don’t need to prove to me that you’re okay,” he says. “You don’t need to force yourself to do things you don’t want to do.” 

Jaskier smiles, small but genuine, and gets up. He comes and slides onto Geralt’s lap, his doublet gaping open, Geralt’s trousers loose around his waist. “I know,” he says, and kisses Geralt softly. “But I want to.” 

Geralt settles his hands on Jaskier’s hips. “I’ll come with you,” he says firmly. “Wait outside the door, if that’s what I need to do.” 

Jaskier laughs. “No, you won’t,” he says fondly. “Have a bath, go for a walk. Or even better – go spend some quality time with Roach, make sure that she’s getting only the best oats and the sweetest hay. Yell at stablehands for daring to touch her with brushes that aren’t up to your standards. That’ll stop you fretting.”

Geralt frowns. “I don’t fret.” 

“You fret more than anyone I’ve ever met,” Jaskier says flatly. “And I know that if I leave you to your own devices, you’ll be climbing the walls by the time I get back here. So I’m _ordering_ you – go saddle Roach, take her for a ride, spend the afternoon getting away from all of these nobles that you hate so much.” 

Geralt raises an eyebrow. “You think you can give me orders?” he asks, voice low, dangerous. 

Jaskier smiles, wicked and dark. He runs his fingers into Geralt’s hair, grips tight, pulls Geralt’s head back, exposing the line of his throat. “I think,” he says, softer, “that you’d do whatever I asked you to do – given the right… persuasion.” 

Geralt chuckles. “You’re trying to distract me.” 

Jaskier’s hand trails down Geralt’s stomach, dips lower. “I am distracting you,” he points out. “And Marcian didn’t put a time limit on this mysterious meeting that you’re not allowed to be at, did he? He just said _when I’m ready_. And if I want to lay you out in bed and make you scream my name first, then that’s my prerogative.” 

“You’re usually the one who does the screaming,” Geralt points out wryly. 

Jaskier shrugs. “Think of it as a challenge,” he deadpans. 

Geralt stills, just for a second. “If you’re sure,” he says quietly. 

“I’m sure,” Jaskier says, just as quiet, and kisses him. “Now come on. Let’s finish what we started.” 

Geralt shifts, slips his hands under Jaskier’s thighs, then lifts him and stands without so much as a pause, carrying him back to the bedroom. Jaskier laughs, a little shocked, a little breathless, but then just winds his arms around Geralt’s neck and kisses him harder. 

It’s mid-afternoon by the time they actually manage to leave their room. There’s a fresh bruise low on Jaskier’s throat, hidden by the conveniently high neck of his royal blue doublet, and a set of half-moon fingernail marks on Geralt’s hips that will be healed within the hour, and they kiss one last time before they part, Jaskier to Marcian’s office, Geralt to the stables. 

“I won’t be far,” Geralt says, soft against Jaskier’s lips. 

“Yes, you will,” Jaskier says firmly. “You’ll take Roach out, you’ll stretch her legs, and you’ll come back in time for the second night of the celebrations – where there will be double the number of idiot nobles, and you’ll have _double the fun_ glaring at them all from your corner. And you’ll probably have another conversation with Violetta about what I’m like in bed, I imagine, before _taking_ me to bed in a wonderful repeat of this afternoon. It’ll be perfect.” 

Geralt just hums, and watches as Jaskier swaggers away through the manor’s corridors with an exaggerated confidence in his every step. 

Geralt goes to the stables, glares at the stablehand he finds in Roach’s stall until the boy scurries away, and runs his fingers through Roach’s mane. She snorts a few times, snuffles at his hands and his pockets until he relents and retrieves the apple he took from the breakfast tray, lets her eat it out of his hand with velvety soft lips. It vanishes in a handful of heartbeats, and then she sniffs at him for a little while longer, clearly searching for more. He huffs a laugh. “No more,” he says softly, and she bumps her nose against his shoulder. “We’ll go out into the grounds, see if there’s a fruit tree you can strip.” 

Roach snorts again at that, which Geralt takes as agreement. 

He’s reaching for her tack, hung up along the side of the stall and, admittedly, looking cleaner than it has in months, when there’s a clatter of hooves behind him. He glances back briefly, sees a group of young men come trotting into the stables on horses that look highly-bred and very expensive. Their riders are talking loudly, obnoxiously, heedless of the manor staff around them, and as Geralt watches, one of them swings down out of the saddle without paying attention where he’s going and kicks the stablehand who was tending to Roach in the chest, sending him crashing to the ground. The man that Geralt’s assuming is one of the nobles newly-arrived for tonight’s dinner just laughs when he sees the boy sprawled out in the dirt in front of him, and says, bright and crowing, “Be glad that I was _me_ that kicked you, and not my godsdamn _horse!_ ” The other young nobles laugh like he’s said the funniest thing in the world. 

Geralt rolls his eyes, and turns back to tacking Roach. 

“And what do we have here?” 

Geralt looks back over his shoulder. That same young noble is standing in the entrance to Roach’s stall, arms folded, eyebrow cocked, eyeing Geralt with that peculiar mix of scorn and hatred that is so particular to young, arrogant members of the nobility. Geralt knows it well, and all of a sudden there’s a sinking feeling in his stomach “I’m just seeing to my horse,” he says, gruff and short. “I don’t want any trouble.” 

“ _Your_ horse?” another one of the noble youths asks, and, oh, fantastic, now the rest of the little lordlings are crowding around their friend, a gang of sneers and bitter laughs. Abruptly Geralt realises that he can smell alcohol on their breaths, which is really just fantastic. Exactly what he needs right now. “I’d wager that’s one of my lord the Marquess’ horses and you’re here to _steal_ her, mutant.” 

Geralt turns away, feels Roach’s breath huff against his shoulder as if in support. He knows their type, these little shits. They want to get a rise out of him, want him to respond. If he ignores them, eventually they’ll get bored and leave him alone. 

“ _Hey_.” Something hits Geralt in the back of the head – a pebble, small and round and thrown hard enough that it makes Geralt grit his teeth. “I’m talking to you, horse thief,” the second noble spits, and Geralt’s hand tightens in Roach’s mane. “I’m giving you a chance to confess now, and we’ll just run you off the estate. If we haul you before the Marquess himself, do you think be as sympathetic as we are?” 

Geralt lets out a breath, looks back over his shoulder. “I’m a personal guest of the Marquess,” he says, trying to keep the sneer out of his voice. “So I imagine he’d be a lot more respectful than you’re being right now.”

The first noble’s eyes go wide. “ _Respectful_ ,” he splutters. “What’s this, a monster-killing, horse-stealing _thief_ talking about _respect_?” 

This isn’t going how it was supposed to. Geralt grits his teeth again, forces down the response, and turns back to Roach once again. He lifts her saddle off the wall, notices with a jolt of satisfaction that one of the stablehands must have sewn up the tear he’s been meaning to see to for a few weeks, presumably the same one who’s been hanging around Roach’s stall every time he’s been down to the stables. It’s good work, too. He abruptly feels a little guilty for driving the boy away. 

Another pebble smacks into his ear, and he hisses at the burst of pain. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, witcher,” the first noble says, full of menace that, under any other circumstance, Geralt would find laughable. “Turn your back again, and you’ll regret it.” 

Geralt isn’t going to fight these idiots. They’re drunk kids, probably hardly any older than the Marquess’ son, and they’ve decided to pick a fight to make themselves feel big. They’re not worthy of his attention. 

“Wait.” 

A third voice adds itself to the pack, and Geralt suppresses the urge to look. Don’t respond. Don’t give the little shits what they want. 

“I know who he is,” the third noble says, his voice deeper than the first two, a little older. “A witcher with white hair – this is the famed Geralt of Rivia. The mighty _White Wolf_.” 

The first noble snorts. “The Butcher of Blaviken, you mean.” 

“I bet he’s come for the _bard_ ,” the third noble says, and Geralt’s stomach twists. He settles Roach’s saddle into place, starts fastening the straps. His jaw is tight. Don’t react. “Matheu told me that his father was going to arrange for that disgraced Redanian viscount to perform – what’s his name, the one that Mat likes so much? The Lettenhove heir?” 

“Jaskier,” the second youth says, then he snorts. “The one who gave up his title to whore himself out to a witcher.” 

_Fuck_ not reacting. 

Geralt turns, hands already balling into fists, because if they want to goad a witcher, then they’re going to goad the fucking Butcher himself. He takes half a step forward, anger blazing in his heart, and maybe it’s the lack of sleep or the righteous rage or just the false sense of security that he gets from waking up to the softness of Jaskier’s skin against his – but his reactions are dulled. 

He’s fucking _slow_. 

Something solid and heavy connects with the side of his head, sending sparks flaring white-hot behind his eyes, and he slides to his knees, stunned. He vaguely hears Roach whinny behind him, hears the nobles grab for her reins and pull her back, but it’s like it’s all coming from very far away.

The third voice says quite clearly, “ _Hit him again!_ ” 

Pain blossoms in his skull once more, and everything goes dark.


	4. Chapter 4

One of the ubiquitous black-clad servants takes Jaskier to Marcian’s study, guides him through the labyrinthine corridors with confident steps and leaves him outside the door. Jaskier can hear voices from behind the mahogany door, deep in quiet conversation that he can’t quite make out. Fear twists up through his gut again, bitter and rich—grave dirt and arsenic—and for a second he wishes he’d listened to Geralt, wishes he’d ignored Marcian’s terrifying request for privacy and brought his own personal witcher bodyguard along with him, anyway. 

But no. Because Marcian is his friend, and he wouldn’t hurt him. He’s not a bunch of Nilfgaardian soldiers, he’s not a trio of bounty hunters in an inn in the middle of nowhere. He’s not _Aldebraan._

Jaskier’s hands are a little shaky, and he purposefully smoothes his palms down the front of his doublet, closes his eyes for a moment. He’s a musician, a _singer_. He knows how to control his breathing, knows how to iron out the bumps, how to tuck away the emotions he doesn’t want to feel when he needs to perform – and he draws on that now, focusing inward, deep breaths, deep breathing. 

He calms himself. He’s fine.

Jaskier raps smartly at the door to Marcian’s study, waits for the called summons, and goes in. He’s light on his feet, a bright smile fixed to his lips, and he says, “Marcian! Apologies for taking so long – I had a few things to… discuss with Geralt before coming to meet you.” 

Which is an introduction that does two things, he reasons. First, it clears the air, sets out that Jaskier knows he’s dallied perhaps a little too long than is usually socially acceptable, makes him seem contrite and open and friendly. Second, it reminds Marcian that Geralt will tear his fucking head off if he hurts Jaskier in any way. 

Marcian stands behind his desk, his lips split in that same vaguely apprehensive smile he was wearing before. “Julian!” he says. “Please, come in. And may I introduce you to Matheu, my son.” 

There’s a young man sitting in a richly-embroidered chair across the desk from his father, the same young man that Jaskier remembers from Marcian’s right hand the night before. He has Marcian’s height and Marcian’s broad shoulders, the same nose and the same grey-green eyes, but his hair is a shock of red that Jaskier remembers from all those years ago, from Beatrix. “Matheu,” Jaskier says, unable to stop his smile from turning a little melancholy, and sketches a bow. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.” 

Matheu gets to his feet, takes Jaskier’s hand and clasps it tight. “Master Jaskier,” he says, his voice as deep as his father’s, his grip tight – and Jaskier blinks, a little surprised. “I have all four of your poetry collections,” Matheu says, not letting go of Jaskier’s hand, “and Grandmama took me to see your performance at the midwinter solstice in Vizima three years ago. You were _brilliant_ , it was just fantastic.” 

Jaskier can’t help it: his lips quirk in a pleased smile. “I remember that performance,” he says, squeezing Matheu’s hand in return. “I debuted _The Ballad of the Aelish Valley_ – the one about—”

“The lovers separated by war,” Matheu blurts. “He bids her farewell before he goes off to battle – but then he’s struck down, and they only meet one more time before he dies in her arms. He sings the same words to her as they part both times—‘ _goodbye, my love, and live for me_ ’—but what’s _really_ wonderful is how the story keeps going after that. Most poets would stop with the tragic ending – but you kept going, you told the story of her life, how she loved again, how she had a family and how she was _happy._ ” He pauses, just for a moment, and behind the deep voice and the stubble fading across his jaw, Jaskier can see the innocence in his eyes. “And then when she dies, an old woman, loved and surrounded by her children and her grandchildren, and when she wakes again after death, her lover is there, waiting for her in the Aelish Valley, and she says—”

“ ‘ _Hello, my love, I lived for you_ ’,” Jaskier says, and smiles. 

Matheu releases his hand, suddenly blushing. “I liked that song,” he mumbles. “It’s clever. And different.” 

“Thank you,” Jaskier answers, and for some reason the praise doesn’t make his gut curdle like Marcian’s did. That was… flattery, he knows. This? This is enthusiasm, pure and simple. “Shall we sit?” 

Matheu nods, and they sit. “I didn’t expect that you would accept my father’s invitation,” he says. “You must have hundreds of invitations and requests for you to play at events far more prestigious than my birthday celebrations.” 

“Some more prestigious,” Jaskier says, then thinks of winter evenings in the small hall at Kaer Morhen, and smiles. “And some less prestigious. But I’m glad that I could provide such entertainment for someone who is clearly well-versed in my work.” He cocks an eyebrow, smiles conspiratorially. “Your father doubted my talents, you know.” 

“ _Father!_ ” Matheu exclaims, scandalised. 

Marcian looks vaguely wounded – but, interestingly enough, that apprehensive expression has faded from his eyes. “I don’t have the same interest in popular music as you do, Matheu,” he says, amusement thick in his voice. “Don’t misunderstand me – I’ve always _respected_ Julian and his reputation as a performer, of course I did, how could I not? But I didn’t think that his music would really be to my tastes, nowadays. I tend to aspire to something more… cerebral.” 

Jaskier arches an eyebrow and tries not to think about all the thinly-veiled pornography in the last few hours of last night’s banquet. “Are you saying that my music isn’t cerebral?” 

“I’m _saying_ ,” Marcian stresses, “that I’m pleased to discover that I was _wrong_.” 

Jaskier shares a glance with Matheu, who looks positively delighted with the whole situation. “I have to say,” Jaskier says, a little more settled, a little less on edge, “this does make a lot of sense that Matheu was the one who wanted me to perform. I mean, Marcian, when I showed up with Geralt in tow you were _surprised_. I wouldn’t imagine that anyone who actually knew much about my music would be surprised to see the White Wolf at my side.” He studies Marcian, frowning. “Have you never heard of _Toss A Coin to Your Witcher_?” 

Marcian shrugs. “Like I said,” he says, looking apologetic. “Popular music.” 

“I actually prefer your bucolic sequences,” Matheu says, his cheeks pinked and a tone in his voice that Jaskier dimly remembers from tutorials at Oxenfurt. “The adventures with the witcher are very… _thrilling_ , but any bard could make those stories exciting. I like the – intimacy, I think that’s the best word? The intimacy of the bucolics. ‘ _Sweet is the music of the pine’s whisper_ / _alongside those rustling springs,_ / _and sweet the whisper of your pipes_.’ It’s quieter, but it’s very evocative.” 

Jaskier studies him, a little surprised. “You know, not many people remember the bucolics,” he says, a smile twitching his lips. “They were a bit of an indulgence – the publisher in Oxenfurt was reluctant to even include them in that last collection. But I like them, too.” – and just for a second he thinks about those poems, about spending a summer’s day with his notebook sitting beside a picture-perfect babbling brook in the middle of lush, green woodland, about singing snatches of melody to the water and imagining that the spring was singing back, in its own way. 

He’s pretty sure Geralt then came lumbering back with the head of some malign earth spirit tucked under his arm, covered in soil and blood, but he excised that part from the official record. 

There’s a brightness in Matheu’s eyes that, just for a moment, reminds Jaskier of Ciri. “Your indulgences,” he says with the surety of youth, “are of better quality than the labours of a _hundred_ lesser poets.” 

Jaskier laughs. “I wouldn’t say that,” he says, then leans closer. “At least not in front of those hundred lesser poets. That’s how you stop getting invited to the best piss-ups.” 

Matheu grins, and looks so very much like his mother. 

At his desk, Marcian folds his hands across his stomach. “Matheu,” he says, a soft note of command in his voice. “Your grandmother wants to speak to you in advance of this evening’s celebrations. Would you please go to her?” 

Matheu nods. “Of course, Father,” he says – then hesitates for a second, turns to Jaskier, does some kind of odd little movement that Jaskier thinks might be intended to be a bow, then blushes again when he realises how messy it was. “I’m looking forward to talking with you again, Master Jaskier,” he says, oddly formal, then gets to his feet and leaves Marcian’s study. 

The door closes behind him with a soft click. 

Jaskier looks back to Marcian, sitting relaxed and easy behind his desk, a small smile curling his lips. “Your son has good taste,” he says, doing his best to ignore the nerves that are curled back up through his gut. “Better than yours, at least.” 

Marcian sighs, throws up his hands. “I should have known better than to put you two together,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I don’t know _nearly_ enough about music to compete.” 

“He’s a smart boy,” Jaskier says, nodding. “Seems to know a surprising amount about my body of work.” 

“You should see his rooms,” Marcian says. “I swear, it’s like some kind of _shrine_ to you in there.” 

Jaskier takes a breath, takes another, doesn’t think about the sigil on his tongue and the cold of a dungeon’s stone under his unresponsive body. “Always nice to meet a fan,” he says, a sour taste in the back of his throat. 

“Do you like him?” Marcian asks. 

It’s a slightly odd question. “I like him well enough,” Jaskier answers, a little guarded. “Given that I don’t really know much about him beyond, well, his taste in music. Which is clearly excellent.” 

“I was hoping that that would be the case,” Marcian says, and he lets out a breath that sounds like _relief_. 

Jaskier shifts a little in his seat. “What exactly did you want to speak to me about, Marcian?” he asks, trying not to let his discomfort blossom into his voice. 

“Matheu will be going to Oxenfurt in the autumn,” Marcian says. “Following in our footsteps, you might say. Off to make his own memories of the summer solstice.” Jaskier tries to smile, but he can’t quite muster the joy. “As you can probably guess, the part of the Seven Liberal Arts that he’s most interested in is music. And I want a tutor for him for the next few months, to prepare him for the vigour of an Oxenfurt education.” 

It takes a moment for it to sink in. 

Jaskier blinks, frowns. “Marcian, are you saying that you want me to tutor your son?” 

“My girls, too,” Marcian says. “They’re younger, fourteen and eleven, so of course they don’t know yet whether or not they’re going to want to explore that level education – but both of them have the same passion for music as Matheu does.” He laughs a little. “I hate to admit that they’re not quite such fervent fans of yours, but I trust that that won’t affect your teaching style.” 

Jaskier opens his mouth, closes it again, then finally finds his words. “Marcian, I’m a… _bard._ I’m not a tutor for young nobles.” 

“You’ve taught at Oxenfurt,” Marcian points out. “Matheu tells me that you’ve been a guest lecturer there several times – and I believe Violetta mentioned that you spent a full year there, six, maybe seven years ago?” 

“I did,” Jaskier says faintly. It was a good year, actually, a year of praise and fawning and the kind of backstabbing and bitchery that Jaskier’s only ever witnessed in an academic environment – but by the time the spring rolled around again, by the time Geralt showed up after another winter at Kaer Morhen, there was an itch under Jaskier’s skin that no amount of fancy parties or intellectual discussions could quench. One near-miss with a higher vampire on the outskirts of Novigrad and that itch was long-forgotten. “Marcian—”

“Lara has had tuition in singing and in the harp,” Marcian interrupts. “Millisent knows singing, the harp, the viol, and—you’ll be glad to hear—she’s a fairly talented lutenist. Their music tuition has been somewhat… interrupted, I have to say – Matheu has been picky with his tutors. He’s driven more than one away – which, obviously, has had a knock-on effect with the girls. That’s why you will be perfect – the moment I agreed to have you perform for these celebrations, it’s virtually all he could talk about. Of course, I needed to see your talent for myself to make sure that he wasn’t blinded by some kind of… adolescent crush.” He spreads his hands. “I was impressed. And here we are.” 

“So this was some kind of… _audition_?” Jaskier asks. 

“If you like,” Marcian says, nodding. “You’ll be glad to know that you passed with flying colours.” 

Jaskier breathes, in and out, slow and careful. “You want me to be a tutor for your children,” he says, his voice very level, very still. “To live here on a permanent basis. For as long as I’m needed.” 

Marcian nods again. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “Your relationship with the witcher. It makes it a little complex, doesn’t it?” He sighs. “He’s a wandering monster hunter, he can’t live in a manor like this – it would be _wholly_ impractical. But I can assure you that he would be more than welcome to visit here whenever he wanted – he could even winter here, I’m sure he’d be delighted to be able to spend the coldest months here. It must be far better than whatever he experiences at the moment!” 

Just for the briefest moment, Jaskier imagines the witchers of Kaer Morhen at Marcian’s manor, sparring in the banqueting hall, wrestling in the private dining room. Eskel promenading in the rose gardens, Lambert luxuriating in silk sheets and velvet drapes. Coën making small talk at a banquet, Vesemir hunting with dogs and horses and servants to shake the grouse out of the shrubbery. 

“Geralt is clearly important to you, Julian,” Marcian says, sincere, intense. “I want him to feel like he can come and go as he pleases, that he can visit you whenever he wants. I want him to feel _comfortable_ here.”

“But I stay here,” Jaskier says flatly. “Geralt leaves, I stay.” 

“Indeed,” Marcian says. 

“That’s what you were talking about,” Jaskier says. “By the stables. When you said that Geralt _complicates_ matters.” 

Marcian nods. “I never expected that you would fall in love,” he says. “Forgive me for that. I shouldn’t have underestimated you – and perhaps I should have listened more to what Matheu told me about your talent for love poetry!” 

Jaskier is very, very still. He doesn’t speak for a long moment. 

For the first time, Marcian frowns. “You’ll have a yearly stipend, of course,” he says. “It’s good money. And you can go to perform anywhere in the Continent, of course, you’re not trapped here – but it would have to fit in around the girls’ education, once Matheu has left for Oxenfurt.” He pauses, studies Jaskier. “I imagine that you’re having similar offers from many quarters,” he says. “And some might be more prestigious than mine – but I like to imagine that I have the added advantage of being your friend. You know me.” 

Jaskier takes a breath.

“This is a place of safety,” Marcian says, hesitation creeping into his voice. “What with the war with Nilfgaard, it can’t be safe for you to wander the countryside – even with Geralt at your side. And you’re not a young man anymore, Julian.” 

Jaskier laughs. 

Marcian pauses. “Julian?” 

“Do you know, Marcian,” Jaskier says, his jaw spasming, “that, except for Geralt, Matheu is the only one who’s called me by my name since I got here?” 

“I don’t understand,” Marcian says slowly. 

“My name is _Jaskier_ , Marcian,” Jaskier says. “It hasn’t been _Julian_ for a long time.” 

Marcian blinks. “I assumed—”

“Yeah, I think that’s the problem,” Jaskier interrupts – but then stops himself, grits his teeth. He meets Marcian’s gaze, level and steady. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Marcian, I really don’t. But I don’t think you understand a _thing_ about me.”

All of a sudden, Marcian’s expression is shuttered. “What do you mean?” 

Jaskier breathes. If nothing else, he can still do that. “I was kidnapped,” he says, flat and blank, and shock flickers through Marcian’s eyes. Jaskier doesn’t let him interrupt, though, because he’s pretty sure that if he stops, he won’t be able to start again. “Very recently. Only a few weeks ago, actually – Geralt and I were taking some time out so I could sort of put myself back together afterwards. That’s why I was in Temeria, that’s why I was nearby.” He pauses, just for a heartbeat. “It was horrific, Marcian,” he says eventually. “I was drugged, I couldn’t move. I was fed so many potions and poisons that I spent hours vomiting blood. I nearly died.” 

“I don’t know what to say,” Marcian whispers, horrified. 

“It was because of my singing,” Jaskier says flatly. “Because of my fucking singing, Marcian. Because some rich bastard liked my singing and didn’t give a shit about me as anything other than what he _wanted_ from me.” 

Marcian’s eyes flare. “That’s not—”

“To be fair,” Jaskier interrupts, “he wanted me to be a human sacrifice, and to use my tongue as some kind of magic ingredient for a fucked-up immortality ritual – which isn’t _quite_ the same as wanting me to teach your children.” He takes a breath. “But you brought me here under false pretences, Marcian. You asked me to come and play for Matheu’s birthday. You didn’t bother to mention that you were assessing my worth to be a live-in tutor for your daughters – and you didn’t bother to ask if that was something that I’d even be _interested_ in.” 

“I just assumed—”

“Exactly,” Jaskier says. “You _assumed_. You assumed that I’d just go along with whatever you wanted me to do.” 

“Julian,” Marcian says, then catches himself, clicks his tongue against his teeth. “ _Jaskier_. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I wouldn’t _dream_ of it – and I’m fairly sure that your witcher would have my head if I tried.” 

Jaskier laughs, but it’s harsh and scarce. “He would,” he says. “He’s… protective.” 

Marcian studies him. “I assume that he’s responsible for rescuing you,” he says quietly. 

Jaskier’s throat is dry. “He is,” he says. “He saved my life.” 

“Then I owe him a debt of gratitude,” Marcian says, firm and decisive and _apologetic_ , and all of a sudden something loosens in Jaskier’s heart. Marcian leans forward against his desk, hands open, furrow in his brow. “I assumed that you would be looking to put an end to your wandering lifestyle,” he says, and it isn’t accusatory, isn’t cruel, isn’t angry. “I assumed that you would be interested in acting as a teacher, as a tutor. I assumed that you were the same youth I knew at Oxenfurt.” He pauses, his lips pressed together. “I assumed that you were incapable of the kind of love that I shared with Beatrix,” he says finally. “I didn’t think beyond what I wanted from you. I didn’t think beyond what _use_ I could get out of you, if I am being honest with myself. I was… _excited_ , both at the prospect of finding a teacher that I respect for my family – but also at the idea that it might be _you_ , my friend. You who knew Beatrix, who knew _me_ with Beatrix.” 

Jaskier sighs. “Marcian, you don’t have to…” 

Marcian shakes his hand. “I apologise,” he says. “Unreservedly. I don’t mean to make excuses, my friend, I really don’t. I _never_ intended to make you uncomfortable, or to disrespect you in the way that I _clearly_ have.” 

Jaskier closes his eyes for a long moment. He breathes. 

“If you can no longer perform tonight and tomorrow,” Marcian says quietly, “I understand. I will honour your fee, of course. I will not keep you here if you wish to leave, and know that I will not hold it against you.” 

“No,” Jaskier says, and opens his eyes. “No, Marcian, that won’t be necessary.” He presses his palms into his knees, stills their shaking, looks up and meets Marcian’s gaze. “I’ll stay,” he says. “I’ll perform.” He laughs, only lightly and very flat. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Matheu. He’s a sweet lad, and your guests… aren’t the worst audience I’ve ever played for.” 

Marcian’s shoulders are still tight. “I’m sorry, Jaskier.” 

“I know you are,” Jaskier says, and for the first time, he believes it. He wants to forgive, he really does, wants to wave his hand and make everything better – but he hesitates, he pauses. Marcian meant well. Marcian thought he was doing him a _favour_ – and maybe once, he would have taken him up on it. Fuck, maybe a _year_ ago Jaskier would have taken him up on it – but he thinks about his life, about Geralt, about Ciri, about Eskel and about Yennefer, and he knows that there’s no way he could live the life that Marcian is offering him. 

“Please consider my request,” Marcian says, quiet and solemn. “I don’t ask for myself, but for my family. For Matheu. It would mean the world to him.” 

Jaskier can’t think about this any more. 

He stands slowly, flashes Marcian as much of a smile as he can manage. “I’ll see you at the banquet, Marcian,” he says, huffs a quiet laugh. “Don’t worry, I won’t run away and leave you without entertainment for your guests. And I’ve saved enough showstoppers that I’m sure no one will be disappointed. Who knows, maybe I’ll throw in one of the bucolics here and there, just for Matheu.” 

Marcian stands opposite him, dips into a bow that’s deeper than a marquess ought to ever give to a viscount. “Thank you, my friend.” 

“You’re welcome,” Jaskier says, and goes. 

Jaskier is steady all the way back through the corridors of the manor, steady all the way back to their suite. He’s steady as he tidies up a little, folding the clothes that he left strewn across the floor, tucking their bags away so they’re not quite so in the way. He’s steady as he examines the tapestry that, as it turns out, they _did_ rip a little last night, steady as he slumps down on the loveseat and folds his hands in his lap, steady as he lets his head fall back, steady as he closes his eyes. 

Abruptly, he really wishes he hadn’t sent Geralt away. 

It’s stupid, really. He’s not in danger, he’s not at risk. He’s not going to be locked in a dungeon, he’s not going to be drugged, he’s not going to have his tongue torn out by the root. There’s nothing the matter, really, most bards would be _honoured_ by this offer – but there he was, thinking that he was something more. Thinking that there were people in his life who gave more of a shit about him than just about what he can do for them. Thinking that there were people who didn’t just want to _use_ him. 

Which is ridiculous. Because he has Geralt and Ciri and Eskel, he has Lambert and Triss and Vesemir and Coën, he has fucking Yennefer of Vengerberg. Fucking _Yennefer_. He has a _family_ , he has more than he’s had in a long time – so who gives a fuck if some people can’t see past his tongue, past his words. Who gives a _fuck_.

The answer, obviously, is that _Jaskier_ gives a fuck. 

Jaskier sits up, scrubs his hands across his face and ignores the fact that they come away wet. He shakes his head, wipes his hands on his thighs, and says to himself, quite firmly, “You’re being fucking ridiculous.” 

Geralt will be back soon, and Jaskier can shout and stamp his foot like a child, and then he’ll go sing his heart out for Marcian’s son because that’s what he’s paid to do. And he won’t drink so much and won’t get so little sleep, and then tomorrow he’ll be able to file all this away like a sensible adult human. One more night of performing after that and they can leave. They can go back to Triss’ house, reclaim their borrowed bedroom, and then they can just fuck like rabbits until he can’t remember the bitter taste that sits at the back of his tongue. 

Arsenic and grave dirt. 

Jaskier gets up, finds one of the manor’s servants, and calls for a bath. 

He has his bath, warm and lavender-scented, washes his hair, soaks for long enough that his fingertips wrinkle and the water goes cold. He gets dressed, runs through a few finger exercises on his lute to calm himself, and then another servant brings in a tray of food—enough for two—and he picks at it until his paltry hunger is satisfied. The second night of celebrations are on the verge of beginning, he can practically feel the excited thrum in the air, and he needs to go downstairs, needs to tune up and prepare. 

Except Geralt still isn’t back.

Jaskier pauses for a moment, staring thoughtfully at Geralt’s swords, half-hidden in the pile of their belongings. Geralt has never liked the nobility, he knows that, so he’s probably just taking full advantage of Jaskier’s permission to get some space. He’ll be back, sneaking into the back of the banqueting hall midway through the evening. He’s probably just trying to avoid another confrontation with Violetta – which is fair enough, to be honest, because Jaskier has been on the receiving end of enough tongue-lashings from that woman to want to avoid them. 

It’s nothing. 

Jaskier collects his lute, breathes in, breathes out, and goes to the banqueting hall. 

Midway through the evening, Jaskier casts a glance to the corner that Geralt spent most of last night’s feast lurking in. There’s no one there. 

His fingers pause a little on the strings of his lute, but this is really the flautist’s melody, anyway, so it’s not like anyone notices.

Jaskier picks up where he left off, tosses a wink to Violetta when she catches his eye, and spins into the next verse. Geralt’s probably gone for an ale, or he’s got distracted down in the stables by a tiny stone in Roach’s shoe or the loosest knot in her mane. He’ll be fussing over her, feeding her apples and holding one-sided murmuring conversations that definitely aren’t the most adorable things that Jaskier has ever heard.

Jaskier smiles, and keeps on singing. 

Geralt still isn’t there by the time the dessert trays are being taken away. 

Disquiet starts to needle in Jaskier’s gut. 

Matheu’s sisters have been shepherded away to bed by their grandmother and Jaskier’s on the third song that’s just undisguised filth. Geralt still isn’t there. 

Jaskier leaves his lute by the side of the performers’ dais and reaches for a cup of water, drinks deep and ignores the urge to swap the water for wine and drown the knot of fear that’s set up root deep in his chest. It’s late, the sun long since set, but he knows the banquet won’t finish for another few hours yet, no, there are far too many nobles having far too much fun for that. The other musicians maintain enough of a background thrum of music to keep their audience happy, the tune pleasant if a little uninspired, and Jaskier, once again, looks for Geralt. 

He’s not here. It was mid-afternoon that Jaskier told him to go for a ride, go take Roach out and escape the cruel sarcasm of the aristocracy – and, fuck, he should be back by now. Maybe he’s in their rooms, maybe he decided that he’d just leave Jaskier to his own devices for a little while, get some undisturbed rest – but no, Jaskier knows that’s not what happened, knows that Geralt wouldn’t do that. Not when he said that he’d come back. Not when Jaskier practically had to chase him away with a broom to get him to leave. 

Which means that something’s happened.

“Fuck,” Jaskier whispers, unbidden, and looks to the high table. 

Marcian meets his gaze, cheeks flushed but gaze serious, and jerks his head in an unmistakeable summons. 

_Fuck_ , Jaskier thinks again, a little inelegantly. 

Marcian comes to meet him, off to the side of the hall. “Come with me,” he says, low and tight, and leads Jaskier out of the banqueting hall, down a narrow, winding hallway that looks distinctly like it’s part of the winding warren of servants’ corridors that honeycombs every manor house across the Continent. “There’s been an… incident,” Marcian says tightly. “In the stables. With your witcher.” 

The bottom drops out of Jaskier’s stomach. “What kind of _incident_?” he bites out. 

Marcian shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just received word that one of the stablehands is reporting some kind of… _altercation_.” He glances sideways at Jaskier. “And I noticed that he hasn’t been at the banquet.” 

Jaskier’s stomach clenches. “He was going riding this afternoon,” he says. “While I spoke to you.” 

Marcian’s jaw is tight. “Shit,” he says, and walks faster. 

The corridor spits them out by the stables, and it takes them half the time to get there than it would have done if they’d taken the manor’s main hallways. Jaskier’s a little disoriented, if he’s honest, going straight from the shouts and clamour of the feast to the quiet musk of the stables, the soft rustle of the horses, the quiet conversation of the stablehands – but no, it’s not all quiet, because there’s a whinny from one end of the stalls, high and panicked, and the sound of hooves stamping loud against the ground. 

It’s coming from Roach’s stall, Jaskier realises with a start. 

“Shit,” he bites out, and goes. 

Roach’s eyes are rolling in her head, her muzzle flecked with spittle and her flanks heaving. She looks like she’s galloped for half the afternoon, but her tack is spotless and there’s no mud on her flanks, so grass on her hooves. She’s panicking, Jaskier realises, and there’s a handful of men wearing the uniform of the stables around her, trying to calm her – but they’re just making it worse. Jaskier swears again, ignores the fact that he’s currently wearing an outfit that probably cost more than some of these men make in a year, and shoulders his way between them. “Let her _go_ ,” he snaps, pulling one man’s hand away from Roach’s snapping teeth, pushing another a few paces back. “She doesn’t like strangers. You’re just making it worse – so _back off_.” 

Grudgingly, they do. 

Jaskier reaches out slowly, carefully, tries not to flinch as Roach neighs again, painfully loud. “Hey, girl,” he murmurs, takes a tiny step closer, stands his ground as she flicks her head, wickers. “Hey. I know I’m not Geralt, but you know me. You’re safe, you’re okay.” His fingertips brush lightly against her nose and she shakes her head, mane spraying out into the air, but doesn’t retreat from him. “Good girl,” he says, scratching at her snout. “ _Good girl_.” 

Roach calms slowly, but eventually she’s nuzzling at his shoulder, pressing closer. She wickers again, huffs a breath against his chest – and then Jaskier realises with a start that, oh, _fuck_ , there’s _blood_ on her coat. Only a few flecks, here and there, none bigger than a raindrop – but there’s _blood_ on Roach’s _coat_. 

Jaskier breathes, looks back over his shoulder to Marcian. “What the fuck happened?” he snaps. 

There’s a boy standing at Marcian’s side, a stablehand whose face Jaskier vaguely recognises. His expression is pinched and tight, and there’s a bruise developing across his cheek. “They took him,” he says, his shaking voice still unbroken, and Marcian’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, gently, almost fatherly. “Some of the guests. They hit him, knocked him out. Put him on one of their horses and rode away.” 

Fear thrums through Jaskier’s heart. “Geralt?” he asks, and Roach pushes closer against him at the name. 

The boy nods. “They left one of their squires here,” he says quietly, then indicates the side of his face. “He hit me. Told me not to tell. But then the squire went to the feast, and I came to tell you.” He points at Roach, and Jaskier notices that his small hand is trembling. “She’s been like that since they took him. Hasn’t let anyone go near her except you.” 

“Where did they go?” Jaskier asks, on the edge, wrapped tight. “Where did they _take him_?” 

The boy’s eyes are wide and terrified. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know.” 

Jaskier’s fingers spread wider over the flecks of blood on Roach’s coat, and for a long, painful moment he forgets how to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bucolic poetry that Matheu quotes is a verrrrrrry loosely translated version of the opening lines of Theocritus' first _Idyll_.


	5. Chapter 5

“Fuck,” Jaskier spits. His stomach is churning, bile thick in the back of his throat, but he knows he doesn’t have time to panic. He fixes the stablehand with as level a gaze as he can manage. “This squire,” he says. “You’d recognise him?” 

The stablehand nods, wordless. The growing bruise around his eyes is dark in the dim light. 

“Good,” Jaskier says, his heart hammering in his ears, so loud it’s almost painful. “Marcian, I need you to go with him to the banquet. Find this squire, whoever he is.”

Marcian’s nodding. “My guards,” he says. “I’ll rouse them.” 

“And we’ll get the horses saddled,” Jaskier says, his hands steady on Roach – because there’s blood in her coat, _Geralt’s_ blood in her coat, and like fuck is he going to let anyone else touch her. “We have to assume they’ve taken him out of the manor. We’ll probably need to search, fuck, we’ll need to search _a lot_.”

“The squire,” Marcian says shortly. “Whatever he knows may be able to help us.” 

_Us_. If Jaskier was less twisted, less terrified, he’d feel a swell of gratitude in his heart at that plural. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, good.” 

Marcian is steely. “Come with me,” he says to the boy, squeezes his shoulder once more, then leads him back into the manor’s back corridors. 

The other men in the stables pause for a second, quiet descending heavy over them, and then, almost as one, they look to Jaskier. Jaskier isn’t sure when he took charge of this situation, isn’t sure when these strangers decided that he was worth listening to – but, now that he thinks about it, for these men who spend their lives around horses, it was probably about the same time as Roach calmed for him without him really needing to try. 

“Get the horses ready,” Jaskier says, softer, knowing that his voice will carry, and they flurry to obey. 

Jaskier takes a breath, presses his hand to his stomach, and grabs Roach’s saddle. 

Geralt wakes in a ditch.

He groans, reaches up to press a hand to the pounding in his head, and when he takes his fingers away, they’re bloody. He lies there for a moment, just staring at the blood and frowning a little, before dropping his arm, wiping his hand on his thigh, and rolling onto his hands and knees. He stays like that for a moment or two, head hung, ends of his hair dragging in the mud under his hands, because it’s like there’s a white-hot explosion going on behind his eyes, light seeping into every corner of his skull, throbbing, slicing, _hurting_. 

Geralt stays there, head bowed, and waits for the pain to recede.

It does, eventually, and he cracks open an eye. 

Yep, he’s in a ditch. 

Moving slowly, doing his best to minimise the risk of that blinding pain resurging behind his eyeballs, he looks around. There’s a trickle of dirty water running over his fingertips and under his knees, soaking into the toes of his boots, and he’s surrounded by the familiar smell of wet, peaty earth. The ditch isn’t too deep, maybe only half a metre or so, and Geralt sits back on his heels, slowly, slowly, assessing and remembering. 

Those little shits in the stables. They got a lucky blow in, caught him squarely on the side of the head – and that’s the problem, because all his witcher strength and witcher training is, frankly, _useless_ when his head feels like it’s been thoroughly scrambled. He vaguely remembers being manhandled across a horse, cracked across the skull again and again every time he stirred – and then being ridden out into this fucking _wood_ , rolled off the horse, dumped to the ground and kicked into this… ditch. Where he tried to get to his feet, tried to lunge back at the six, seven, maybe eight arrogant, drunken noble youths who thought it was a hilarious idea to abduct a fucking witcher and then dump him in the middle of nowhere. 

It’s all a bit fuzzy after that. From the available evidence, he imagines he passed out.

Geralt gets to his feet slowly, carefully, then looks up at the sky that he can just about make out through the trees. It was mid-afternoon when he went to the stables, he remembers, but the sky doesn’t look like an afternoon sky anymore. He squints a bit, has to take a minute to suppress the resulting throb in his skull, then realises that, oh, wait, the sun’s in the east. 

It’s _morning_. 

“Fuck,” Geralt mutters to himself, and starts to drag himself out of the ditch. 

He has no idea where he is, but he doesn’t think that’ll be much of a problem. There’s a distinct smell of sweat and horses in the air, of alcohol and heavy perfume—all of which suggests a very particular combination of _noble_ and _arsehole_ —that he reckons he’ll be able to follow back to the road or the manor or wherever the fuck he’s come from – and, now that he’s looking, there are hoofprints and smeared mud and broken branches in a clear path leading off to the north. The youths clearly didn’t give much of a shit about covering their tracks – but, then again, they’re nobles. They’ve probably never faced a consequence in their lives. 

Geralt pauses, sniffs again, and catches the distinctly acrid smell of urine. He briefly checks, confirms he hasn’t pissed himself, then wrinkles his nose and tries not to think about the logical conclusion to that observation. 

_Nobles._

He’s never following Jaskier to a fucking noble banquet again. 

There’s a heartbeat of empty space after that thought, his head still hurting, blood cracking and drying on the side of his face, mud slick and wet in his hair. He gets himself up onto the side of the ditch, sways a little – then pauses, winds back through his thoughts. 

_Jaskier._

His heart seizes in his chest. “Fuck,” he says again, and starts to lumber along the trail that the idiot youths left behind. 

It’s _difficult_. He usually manages to avoid getting hit in the head precisely because of this exact scenario – head wounds are a nightmare at the best of times, and now—lost, alone, unarmed—is pretty far from the best of times. He stumbles more than he should, his pace is slower, and when he tries to break into even a slow jog he’s dizzy enough that he has to stop completely, catch himself against a treetrunk and close his eyes until the world stops spinning. 

He fucking _hates_ head wounds. 

Geralt isn’t sure how long it takes for him to get out of the woods. He just keeps on doggedly following the scent of perfume and horse and alcohol, and eventually the muddy ground under his boots shifts to a hard-packed trail and then, eventually, to a paved road that he actually recognises from their journey to the Marquess’ manor, only a few day ago. The sun is significantly higher in the sky, now, suggesting it’s been a few hours at least since he managed to drag himself out of that fucking ditch, and he pauses on the edge of the road, sways a little, tries not to think too many thoughts along the lines of _this is taking too much time_ and _I’ve left Jaskier alone._

_I’ve left Jaskier alone,_ he thinks, crystal clear, and starts along the road in the direction of the manor. 

Spots still swim in his vision, and occasionally there’s still a burst of searing white pain behind his eyes, but it’s getting better. After a while, he risks another jog – but rapidly puts paid to that idea, because the thud of the road through his boots and the brightness of the sun overhead sends him retching into the bushes. He absently realises that, if he was a normal human right now, he’d probably be dead – repeated blows to the head and a night spent passed out in the woods is more than enough to leave a human on the brink of death. And with that thought comes the slow realisation that, fuck, there’s a distinct possibility that, given those noble youths’ willingness to jump a witcher, this isn’t the first time they’ve done this.

Geralt hates nobles. And head wounds. And being pissed on in a ditch in the woods. 

He particularly hates that last one. 

Geralt walks on down the road, waiting for his head to settle. 

It’s not the busiest road on the Continent, but occasionally a rider will trot past him, or a cart full of vegetables, or once a small carriage gilded with what he’s guessing is the coat of arms of some minor noble house. Given that he’s filthy, covered in blood, and walking a little like he’s drunk at mid-morning, they tend to give him a wide berth even without seeing his yellow eyes – and he’s frankly pretty happy to respond in kind, ignoring them and just focusing on not throwing up into the shrubbery again. This close to a manor house, anyway, they’re likely to be linked to Marcian and maybe even to his guests – which means that, in all likelihood, even if they did decide to take pity on a wretched-looking stranger, they’d recoil into the shade of their elegantly-appointed carriages when they realised what kind of a creature they were looking at, what kind of a _monster_. 

Geralt’s memories of what happened in the stables are a little hazy at this point, most likely as a result of his brain being battered around inside his skull, but he remembers what they said about Jaskier. The _disgraced viscount_. Who _whored himself out to a witcher._

“ _Geralt!_ ” 

For a long second, Geralt’s pretty convinced that he’s hearing things. 

There’s been the clatter of hooves on the road for a few minutes, now, but he’s been ignoring it, preoccupied with walking in a straight line and an obnoxious pulsing pain just above his right temple. Now, though, he looks up, squints into the sunlight, winces and wavers as his head throbs loudly – but then there’s a familiar horse careening towards him with a familiar figure on her back. 

Geralt licks his lips, steadies himself against Roach’s neck. “Jaskier,” he says, like he’s trying the name out for the first time.

Jaskier leaps out of the saddle and cradles Geralt’s face between his hands. Geralt blinks the headache away, peers into Jaskier’s face, sees the dark shadows, the red rimmed eyes, the dry lips and the relief crashing through his expression. “Geralt,” Jaskier says, then leans forward, kisses him. “Fuck, Geralt, we’ve been looking for you _all night_.” 

“I was in a ditch,” Geralt says, which he imagines is very helpful.

Jaskier frowns at him for a second, then runs his fingers across Geralt’s forehead, across his dirty hair. “This is… a lot of blood,” he says after a moment, fear twisting into his voice. “Are you hurt?” 

“Some noble kids,” Geralt says, finding it surprisingly difficult to get his tongue to cooperate. “Hit me. A lot.” 

“In the head?” 

“Yeah.” 

Jaskier nods, takes Geralt’s hand. “We’re not far from the manor,” he says firmly. “Little bastards apparently didn’t even think to take you that far. We’ll get you up on Roach, then get that nasty little head wound sorted out. I don’t think Marcian’s got a healer on staff, but we’ve got your bag of magic potions, haven’t we? And if I can fix Eskel after he got his guts ripped out by a wyvern, I can definitely fix you after a good slap round the head.” 

Geralt lets himself be led to Roach, and he manages to hoist himself up onto her back with only a little assistance. He settles into the saddle, grips her reins in worryingly numb fingers, and is oddly relieved when Jaskier mounts behind him, takes the reins from his grasp and quickly directs Roach onwards down the road. It’s only then that Geralt realises they’re not alone – there’s another three riders with them, men wearing what he recognises as the Marquess’ livery. “You’ve made some friends,” he says, settling back against Jaskier’s chest as much as he can, closing his eyes against the ache of the sun. His head falls back against Jaskier’s shoulder a little harder than he intends. 

Jaskier’s breath is warm against his cheek, and he huffs a laugh. “Marcian wasn’t exactly pleased when he found out what had happened,” he says. “Threw all the men he had into looking for you. After he’d rounded up the fuckers who did this to you, that is – they came back, you know? They sat there at that fucking banquet, watched me perform – after, what, dumping you for dead in the woods?” He hisses through his teeth. “Fucking _nobles_.” 

Geralt reaches back, pats Jaskier’s thigh. “You’re a noble.” 

“Yeah, but I’m not a dick.” 

“Sometimes you’re a dick.” 

Jaskier laughs. “I’m going to chalk that one up to the head wound,” he says, switches the reins to his right hand and wraps his left arm around Geralt’s stomach. “Fuck, Geralt,” he says, a little softer, barely audible over Roach’s cantering hooves. “I thought…” He trails off, doesn’t elaborate.

Geralt squeezes his thigh. The movement of Roach’s borderline-gallop isn’t helping his head and he sort of wants to let himself pass out again, but he knows that, first, passing out with head wounds isn’t really a good idea, and, second, Jaskier is hurting. “I’m okay,” he says, guessing that that’s a good thing to say. “Jaskier, I’m okay.” 

Jaskier snorts, and his hand presses flat against Geralt’s belly. “You’re covered in blood and you stink of piss,” he says. “Pretty sure you’re not, but I appreciate the gesture.” 

Geralt’s hand slips away from Jaskier’s thigh, comes to the hand on his stomach, intertwines their fingers. “I love you,” he says. It seems like the thing to say.

Jaskier inhales sharply, swears under his breath. “I love you,” he says firmly. “Now I’m going to need you to be quiet, Geralt, okay? Because you’re starting to say tender things and that’s _always_ disconcerting.” 

Geralt hums, eyes still closed, and lets Jaskier hold him close. 

He doesn’t doze, per se, but Roach comes to a trotting halt on familiar gravel a lot sooner than he expected. Geralt opens his eyes, peers up at the façade of the manor for a second before the white brightness starts expanding behind his eyes again, then flinches away and lets Jaskier guide him down from the saddle. Roach is led away by a young stablehand that Geralt thinks he might recognise, and then Jaskier’s slinging Geralt’s arm around his shoulders, his arm settling carefully around Geralt’s waist. “Come on,” Jaskier says, gentle and full of concern. “We’ll get you sorted, and then we can _both_ have a nap.” He blows out a soft breath, leads Geralt through manor’s main entryway. “It’s exhausting, you know, worrying about you? I haven’t fucking _slept_ , and that’s after several hours prancing around singing my heart out to a bunch of pricks who just weren’t going to mention the fact that they’d thought it would be a fucking _lark_ to beat you up and dump you in the woods.” 

Geralt thinks about that for a second. He was beaten up and dumped in the woods by a group of young nobles, drunk on alcohol and their own self-importance. He didn’t even put up a fight. 

“Eskel’s never going to let me live this down,” he mutters, mostly to himself.

Jaskier snorts. “What, a bunch of noble striplings getting the drop on you?” he asks, and Geralt hums in what he hopes is an ominous way. “Probably not. I’d say that I won’t tell him, but, provided your magical potion bag is as forthcoming as I hope it’s going to be, I’m _definitely_ going to tell him. Lambert, too.” 

Geralt grumbles in his throat at that, but then there’s a sudden throb of pain in his skull and he subsides. 

There’s the sudden thud of rapid footsteps against the stone floors. “You found him!” a voice that Geralt recognises as Marcian’s says. Geralt peers up through half-lidded eyes, sees an expression on the Marquess’ face that is probably best described as a blur of fury and shock. “Is he—?”

“He’s okay,” Jaskier says, his arm tight around Geralt’s waist. “A bit dazed. I can patch him up back in our rooms.” 

“Does he need a healer?” Marcian asks. “I can send for one, although it might be a few hours.” 

“I don’t think so,” Jaskier says, manoeuvring them around the final corner near their rooms. 

“How can I help?” Marcian asks, and his voice is surprisingly tight. When Geralt looks at him, a little laboriously, he thinks that there’s guilt in his expression. “Please, tell me how I can help.” 

“First,” Jaskier says, tired and still somehow cheery, “open the door, please.” Marcian hastens to obey, and then they’re in their familiar rooms, the same furniture, the same ripped tapestry. Geralt sits heavily on the loveseat, blinks a little against the haze that’s fuzzing his vision, then feels warm hands against his skin, his face. He leans into the touch, breathing in the smell of Jaskier’s skin, orange and sweat, Roach’s musk. “I need hot water, Marcian. And clean rags.” 

Marcian nods. “I’ll be right back.” 

There’s a scuffle of footsteps, and then Jaskier’s pressing a kiss to Geralt’s forehead. “Stay here,” he says softly. “Try not to fall over, alright? I just need to get your bags from the bedroom.” 

Geralt hums, and concentrates on his balance. 

“Here,” Jaskier says after a short while, and there’s a cool vial being pressed to Geralt’s lips. He recognises the smell, one of the weaker healing potions, good, no need to waste the strong ones on this, and opens his mouth, drinks it down in a single swallow. Jaskier’s hand is running through his hair, untangling the worst of the knots with gentle tugs, and as the disorienting pain in Geralt’s head starts to face, he hears Jaskier hiss. “Gods, Geralt, this is a nasty cut,” he says, fingers probing at a particularly tender patch of Geralt’s scalp. “Those little _fuckers_.” 

The door opens again and there’s the patter of feet. The dizziness has receded enough that Geralt risks looking up – Marcian’s back, with a pair of servants carrying a vat of steaming water between them. “Put it down on the table,” Marcian instructs them, then passes a handful of cloths to Jaskier. “I’ve also asked for a bath to be sent up, although that will take a little longer.”

Geralt sees as Jaskier flashes the Marquess a tired smile, sees that there’s no tension in his expression, no concern in the line of his lips. “Thanks, Marcian,” Jaskier says. “For everything.” 

Marcian folds his arms, watches as Jaskier goes to wet a cloth in the hot water, starts to wash the worst of the blood out of what Geralt’s realising must be a fairly sizeable gash in his forehead. “You don’t need to thank me, Jaskier,” he says. “I’m supposed to be your host. So far, all I’ve managed to do is insult you and allow your lover to be beaten and abducted.” 

Geralt’s head is steadying, slowly but surely, and he reaches out, runs his fingertips down the expensive silk of Jaskier’s trousers. It’s one of his performance outfits, he notices, now creased and smelling of horse. 

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t intend either of those things, Marcian,” Jaskier says, dips the cloth in the hot water again, sluices blood out of Geralt’s hair one last time. “Do me a favour? In that black leather bag there – yeah, that one.” Geralt watches as the Marquess de Göttenfal apprehensively opens his potions bag, looking vaguely worried that it’ll bite him. Geralt suppresses a snort. “There’s a little round pot, dark brown wood, chip in the lid – there, that’s the one. Pass it here.” Marcian hands the pot to Jaskier, who opens it, dips his finger in, smears a little of the pungent salve into Geralt’s wound. It stings, and he hisses, clenches his fingers in Jaskier’s trousers. 

Jaskier’s fingers skate down the side of his face, warmed by the water. “You’re sounding a bit more awake,” he says, half amused, half concerned. 

Geralt licks his lips. “Potion’s working.” 

“Good to know,” Jaskier says. “How’s your head?” 

“Getting there.” 

“Remember my name?” 

“Try not to.” 

Jaskier snorts. “See, Marcian?” he says. “This is the thanks I get for saving his life. Sarcasm.” 

Marcian stirs. “Will he be alright?” 

“I’m fine,” Geralt answers, and it’s mostly true. His head’s feeling a lot more normal, now, a lot clearer, and there’s a still a little discomfort from the cuts that Jaskier’s still tending to, yes, but it’s more than manageable. He thinks for a second, remembers _disgraced viscount_ , and almost instinctively his hand tugs Jaskier closer. “The ones who hit me,” he says, brushing Jaskier’s hands away, fierce protectiveness surging in his gut, because he isn’t going to let them _touch_ Jaskier—

“Under guard in a series of disused storerooms, sleeping on empty sacks and whining loudly about their incarceration,” Marcian says, his voice tight. “And they will _stay_ there until their fathers can come and explain exactly why their heirs think it is acceptable to _outrage_ one of my guests in this way for their own _amusement_.” 

Jaskier’s fingers slide through Geralt’s hair, soothing, calming. “One of the stable lads saw the whole thing,” he says softly. “Picked them out, a bunch of sons of the local barons.” 

“Supposedly my vassals,” Marcian says bitterly. “Supposedly friends of my son.” He shakes his head. “Arrogant little shits. If their fathers won’t, I’ll put them over my knee myself.” His lips twist, and he meets Geralt’s gaze. “Unless, of course, you would prefer to discipline them yourself, sir witcher.” 

Frankly, Geralt just wants to curl up in bed with Jaskier and forget about this whole sorry day. “That won’t be necessary.” 

Jaskier snorts. “ _I_ might take you up on the offer,” he says, and returns the bloody cloths to the basin. There’s a brief commotion at the door, and then the servants are back, lugging a heavy-looking copper tub and buckets of water to fill it. They set up the bath with the quick efficiency and pointed disinterest that Geralt recognises from the servants of the nobility. “Marcian,” Jaskier says, voice firm. “As much as I appreciate your fussing, you’re probably best off leaving for this next part. Unless you make a particular habit of watching your injured guests take baths?” 

Marcian flushes. “Of course not,” he says, and rapidly gestures for the servants to leave. He pauses a moment longer, gaze flickering between Geralt and Jaskier, and then he says, softer, “If there is _anything_ I can do.” 

Jaskier nods. “I know,” he says, surprisingly gentle. “Right now, what you can do is go.” 

Marcian nods, and goes. 

Jaskier sighs, and Geralt doesn’t miss the way his shoulders slump. He turns back to Geralt, runs another shaky hand through his hair, then says, “Let’s get you in the bath, yeah? Don’t think I’ll really be able to wash your hair properly with those wounds, but I can get the rest of you clean. And I can probably give the ends of your hair a soap, get the worst of it out. I’ve probably rinsed most of the smell out with that water, to be honest – and I got enough of it on this chair, too. Looks like I’m ruining more of Marcian’s furniture than—”

“Jaskier,” Geralt interrupts, and he’s definitely not up to fighting a kikimora right now, not by a long shot, but he’s cogent enough to know when Jaskier’s fear is catching up with him. “Take your clothes off.” 

“We are _not_ having sex right now,” Jaskier says shrilly. 

Geralt laughs. “You smell like Roach,” he says, one eyebrow raised. “Let’s _both_ get in the bath.” 

Jaskier stares at him for a moment, clearly wanting to find fault in that proposal _somehow_ , but then his expression just sort of crumples and he nods, starts undoing his doublet. Geralt helps, as much as his still uncooperative fingers can, and then they both undress each other, slow, careful, the least erotic thing in the world. Geralt’s legs are steady when he walks to the bath, and he sinks into the water, can’t quite suppress a groan – and Jaskier laughs softly, climbs in after him, bats his knees apart and settles between them, soap and washcloth in hand. “Hold still,” he says, soft, careful, and proceeds to wash as much of Geralt as he can reach. 

Geralt lets him, partially because he quite enjoys the rhythm of the cloth, the smell of the soap, the rippling of the water, but mainly because he knows that, for whatever reason, Jaskier takes comfort in this. That he needs it. 

They’re quiet for a long moment, nothing but the dripping of the water and the soft whisper of their breaths.

Jaskier lets out a long breath. “I was singing for them,” he says quietly, “while you were bloody and unconscious in a fucking _ditch_.” 

Geralt shifts, pulls Jaskier closer, wraps his arms around his chest and buries his nose in the damp curve of his neck. “I’m okay,” he rumbles, and feels Jaskier go lax against him. “My head’s fine. And the wounds will be healed by tomorrow.” 

“I brought you here,” Jaskier says, voice half-muffled in Geralt’s shoulder. 

Geralt hums. “You couldn’t have known,” he says. “And I’m pretty sure your friend thinks it’s his fault, anyway.” 

Jaskier laughs, a little wetly. “Marcian’s just feeling generally guilty,” he says, then shifts, turns himself around, settles with his back to Geralt’s chest. He leans his head back against Geralt’s shoulder, his hair soft and wispy against Geralt’s neck. “He doesn’t want to kill me, by the way. Or steal my tongue.” 

Geralt runs his fingers down Jaskier’s side, settles his palm across his stomach, just under the water. “What did he want to talk to you about?” 

“Gods, it feels like it was a lifetime ago,” Jaskier murmurs, his fingertips skating across the hair on Geralt’s arms. “He wanted to offer me a _job_ , Geralt.” He laughs. “He wants me to stay here as a tutor to his children.” Geralt’s hands still on Jaskier’s skin, and his head is clear, now, unfogged by pain and head wounds, but all of a sudden his heart starts beating faster. “You’d be welcome to come and go as you please, of course,” Jaskier says. “The annual stipend is _extremely_ generous. And his son, Matheu, is actually surprisingly knowledgeable about music – he’s a little like I was at his age, convinced that I knew everything and anything there was to know about the world.” He laughs. “I was _significantly_ more annoying, though. And had less of an interest in pastoral poetry.” 

Geralt thinks about the smile on Jaskier’s lips as he performs, how he fits in so neatly among the nobles in their finery, the way the Marquess looks to him with respect and friendship. “Will you accept?” he asks, tugs Jaskier closer almost without thinking about it – and he knew in his heart that this wouldn’t last, that this _couldn’t_ last, that Jaskier’s life was never with his, that one day that choice would come and he’d leave, just like they all do. He just didn’t think that that day would come so soon.

Jaskier barks a laugh, jolting Geralt out of his doom-mongering. “Obviously not,” he says, and all of a sudden Geralt feels a little wrong-footed. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind maybe coming back in the summer, spending a week or so with Matheu to give him a crash course in how to get away with doing as little as possible at Oxenfurt – but, gods, can you imagine me as a tutor, Geralt?” He snorts. “The only things I’d teach them would be how to run away from their responsibilities and tame themselves a witcher.” 

Something warm settles in Geralt’s heart. “Tame, am I?” is what he says, though, and digs his fingertips a little too hard into Jaskier’s soft stomach. 

Jaskier hums a snatch of song to himself. Geralt thinks it might be from his song of Kaer Morhen, but it’s too brief for him to identify. “As a kitten,” Jaskier says, laughter wound through his voice. “Or maybe a puppy. You know, the puppies that bark and whine all the time, trying to make themselves sound big and intimidating – but you could actually scoop them up with one hand and put them in your pocket.” 

Geralt hauls Jaskier against his chest, pins him there with one arm, listens with an amused twitch to his lips as all the air is driven out of Jaskier’s lungs in a surprised gasp. Jaskier makes a high-pitched noise of offence and smacks at his arm, but Geralt doesn’t let him go, doesn’t relax his hold in the slightest – just presses his lips to the soft, sensitive skin beneath Jaskier’s ear, bites a dark bruise into his flesh.

Jaskier gasps, arches a little against him. “You’re not doing much to make me stop comparing you to a dog,” he points out, his voice trembling. “ _Geralt_. I told you we’re not having sex.” 

Geralt doesn’t answer, just kisses the side of Jaskier’s neck and slides his hand lower, skates his fingertips across the inside of Jaskier’s thighs. 

“Geralt, _stop_ ,” Jaskier says tightly, and all of a sudden Geralt realises that, shit, he isn’t teasing. 

Geralt pulls his hand back immediately, breaks his grip across Jaskier’s chest. “Jaskier?” 

Jaskier lets out a shaky breath. He doesn’t move away, though, doesn’t jerk away from Geralt’s touch like he’s burned him, and Geralt watches, a little wary, as Jaskier takes his hand, winds their fingers together, brushes a kiss to Geralt’s knuckles. “You were staggering along the road like you were half-dead, Geralt,” he says, quiet, reverent. “You nearly fell off Roach half a dozen times on the way back to the manor, and then I had to basically carry you back up here. I’ve got your blood under my nails and I _really_ don’t want to think about why your clothes stink of piss.” 

“I’m fine,” Geralt murmurs, as gentle as he can manage. “Really. I was distracted, they got a lucky hit in. I shouldn’t’ve let it happen.”

“That’s kind of the problem,” Jaskier says, and he sits up, twists to look over his shoulder. His eyes are blue, so blue, and he tries to smile. “ _I’m_ supposed to be the vulnerable one, Geralt. Not you.” 

Geralt breathes out. “Now you know how I felt,” he says, quieter. “When you were gone. When you told me to leave you, across the fire.” It could be accusatory, could be cruel and harsh, but that’s not what he means, it really isn’t. “I’m safe, Jaskier,” he says, and reaches to touch Jaskier’s shoulder, careful, cautious. “So are you.” 

Jaskier closes his eyes, and Geralt can feel the tremble in his body, feel the shake in his limbs. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt says. “Can I touch you?” 

Jaskier snorts, doesn’t open his eyes. “We’re naked in a bath together, Geralt,” he says. 

Geralt doesn’t move. “That doesn’t answer my question.” 

Jaskier sighs, then nods. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, you can touch me. You can _always_ touch me.” 

Geralt leans forward, doing the best he can to put his witcher training to one side and broadcast his moves as much as he can. He wraps himself around Jaskier, warm and steady and close, not moving, not kissing, just mapping as much skin to skin as he can, reassuring and gentle and as much comfort as he knows how to give. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t say anything, just sits in the slowly cooling bathwater, rests his forehead against Jaskier’s cheek, listens to the quiet whisper of his breath, the pattering thud of his heart. 

Jaskier’s eyes flutter open. “I wish we’d just stayed in Triss’ house,” he says, turning closer to Geralt, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Wouldn’t have had to deal with any of this bullshit.” 

Geralt hums. 

Jaskier sighs, sags back against Geralt’s chest, sending a wave rippling through the bathwater, splashing over the sides. “Fuck,” he says, presses closer, closer. “Just…” He shakes his head, fast, frantic. “There’s another night of feasting tonight,” he says. “Marcian said I don’t have to, but I _want_ to. Especially after what he did for you, to _find_ you, I want to give him that. But that’s tonight. Can we just…” He trails off. 

Geralt shifts, gathers Jaskier into his arms, gets to his feet in a rushing waterfall of bathwater and a surprised laugh from Jaskier. He stands still for a moment, making sure that he’s not about to have an attack of brain damage and send them both tumbling to the floor, then steps out of the bath, dripping wet, naked and flushed. Jaskier makes a quiet noise, hushed, gasping, and Geralt knows how much Jaskier enjoys his strength, his _power_ , but that’s not it right now, no, this isn’t about sex. Geralt was staggering alongside the road, dizzy, disoriented, bleeding and pained. He could barely hold himself up. Now? Now he can lift Jaskier like he’s nothing, he can carry him to their bed, he can set him down and crawl in alongside him without even thinking. 

Jaskier laughs, rolls towards him, winds his arms around Geralt’s shoulders. “We’re both still soaking wet,” he points out. 

“We’ll dry,” Geralt says, and pulls the covers over them both. 

Jaskier lets out a breath. “I love you,” he whispers. 

“I thought tender things were disconcerting?” 

“ _You_ saying tender things is disconcerting,” Jaskier corrects. “It’s my native tongue.” 

Geralt hums. “I love you,” he says, and raises an eyebrow, almost a challenge. 

Jaskier smiles, a little broader. “It’s not tender if you’re saying it to make a point.” 

Geralt hums. “Can I kiss you?” 

Jaskier’s eyes are soft. “Always,” he says, and leans forward, catches Geralt’s lips with his, kisses slow and soft and like he’s learning Geralt’s mouth all over again. 

Geralt closes his eyes, curls closer, and lets him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~(Spot the reference to British politics, whoops.)~~

Jaskier dozes off, after a little while, curled forward against Geralt’s chest, his hair damp and wispy against Geralt’s throat. He sleeps solidly, heavily, sleeps like he’s been awake all night, traipsing through woods and countryside, scared and hurting and doing everything he can to hold himself together. Geralt knows that he’ll have to wake him up in an hour or so, knows that there’s still things to do here before they can rest, but for now, he’ll let him sleep. 

Geralt shifts, presses his lips to the top of Jaskier’s head, breathes him in. 

It’s not that he’s not tired, because he is. There’s a weariness in his bones that he can’t quite shake, a side-effect of the healing potion that’s still roiling its way through his system, pulling the gash in his scalp back together, soothing his addled mind and fixing him as much as he needs to be fixed. Really, he’d quite like to just… _pass out_ like Jaskier has, lips slightly parted, snoring softly into Geralt’s chest hair – but he knows he can’t. 

Jaskier sleeps, all the furrows in his forehead smoothed away, vulnerable and open. 

Geralt runs his fingers through the curling strands of Jaskier’s hair, and settles in to watch over him until he has to wake him.

A little while later, Geralt couldn’t say how, long there’s a rustle of sound from out in the main room of their suite. He stills, raises his head a little, ignores the rumble of Jaskier’s snores and just listens. It’s servants, he thinks, taking the bath and the dirty water away, and he lowers his head back down to the pillow – because it might feel strange to have people coming in and out of the space that he can’t quite stop thinking of as theirs, the space that they came back to each other and held each other close, but it’s normal, for noble houses like this one. It’s expected, and if he grabs his sword again and goes running out to kill another breakfast tray, he’s pretty sure Jaskier will add that to the list of things he’ll report back to Eskel and Geralt will never hear the end of. 

“Jaskier?” a quiet voice says from the main room, and then, more hesitantly, “Geralt?”

Jaskier doesn’t stir. Geralt looks down at him for a moment, considering, then carefully extricates himself from the bed, grabs for a pair of trousers and pulls them on quickly. He ducks into a shirt, only vaguely noticing that it’s one of the black silk ones that Jaskier bought for him before they came here, then slips out of the bedroom and closes the door behind him as softly as he can manage. 

Marcian’s standing in the main room, his gaze fixed on Geralt. “Is he…?”

“Asleep,” Geralt confirms, nodding. He positions himself between Marcian and the door to the bedroom, only half aware that he’s doing it, then crosses his arms across his chest. “Can I help you?” 

“I just wanted to check that you were both alright,” Marcian says, offering a small smile. “I suppose I’m trying to claw back some of your opinion of my hospitality.” 

“Your hospitality has been much better than most,” Geralt says. “You cannot be blamed for the actions of your guests.” 

Marcian’s smile is tight. “We must agree to disagree on that point.” 

Geralt hums. 

Marcian pauses, still watching him, then his gaze flickers to the closed door at Geralt’s back. “He won’t accept my offer, will he?” he asks, a tone in his voice that Geralt can’t quite parse.

Geralt doesn’t answer for a moment, slightly unsure how to respond – but he goes with the truth, in the end. “No,” he says, voice neutral. “No, he won’t.” Disappointment flickers across Marcian’s expression, and Geralt feels vaguely guilty for a moment. “He did mention that he might want to come back for your son for a little while,” he says, “although you’d have to talk to him about that.”

“Of course,” Marcian says quickly, then cocks his head, questioning. “If he did, would you come with him?” 

Geralt and Jaskier haven’t really discussed where they go from here, not really, not in any detail. Before, they would split up and come together, circling each other like leaves in an eddy, Jaskier spending months in Oxenfurt, Geralt going on long hunts where Jaskier can’t follow – but that was before Geralt knew the fear of not knowing if Jaskier was safe, the terror of someone else holding his heart in their hands and not being able to do anything, even if only for a little while, to keep them safe. 

Marcian’s waiting for an answer.

Geralt clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I probably would.” 

Marcian nods, like that decides it. “Excellent,” he says, then flashes Geralt a smile that’s halfway between apologetic and amused. “You might complicate matters, sir witcher, but from what I can see, you make my friend very happy. I sincerely hope that you plan to keep making him happy for a long time to come.” 

Geralt raises an eyebrow. “Is this the part where you threaten me?” he asks. 

Marcian looks momentarily shocked. “Threaten you?” he practically squeaks. “Why would I _threaten_ you?” He blinks. “If anyone were to be doing the threatening here, I would imagine it would be you…” 

_That’s_ a presumption Geralt’s heard before. He ignores it. “The Countess de Stael,” he says, a little wryly. “On the first night of the banquets. She saw fit to… warn me of the consequences, should I hurt him.” 

Marcian’s smile is just as wry. “That does sound like Violetta,” he says with a sigh. “But, if I’m honest, I think she has seriously misjudged you, Geralt, if she has any worries about you hurting him.” 

Geralt blinks, tilts his head to one side. “That’s an interesting thing to say to someone you barely know,” he says quietly, and for a second he thinks about Jaskier on the top of that windswept mountain, holding himself together by a thread, pain sharp and naked in his eyes. 

Marcian shrugs. “My mother speaks well of you,” he says. “You kept her entertained throughout an entire evening of dinner. There aren’t many men who can say that they’ve done that – she has… refined tastes.” 

Geralt can’t quite stop himself smirking. “Not many would describe me as ‘refined’.” 

Marcian cocks an eyebrow. “Not many would describe Julian Pancratz as ‘brave’ and ‘decisive’ and ‘good at cleaning bloody headwounds’, either,” he says. “But I’ve seen the proof of all those things in the last day. To me, it seems that, together, you make quite a pair.” 

Geralt doesn’t really know how to respond to that. He does what he does best, and diverts. “We’ll be ready in good time for the banquet,” he says, a little gruff. 

Marcian nods. “Jaskier insisted that he would still perform tonight,” he says quietly. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” 

Geralt feels his lips curl in a smile. “If you’re hoping that I can change his mind, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” 

Marcian snorts a laugh. “Fair enough,” he says, nodding. “He always was a stubborn bastard.” 

Geralt can’t exactly say he disagrees. 

“I’ll leave you to your rest,” Marcian says, and sketches a small bow. “If there is anything you need, the servants will, of course, assist you.” He nods his head once more, smiles. “Until tonight, Geralt of Rivia.” 

Geralt watches him go, the faintest of smiles curling around his lips. 

When he opens the door to the bedroom, Jaskier’s pushed up on his elbows, clearly still half-asleep, blinking in the sudden burst of light. “Geralt?” he asks, voice hazy. “Who was that?” 

“Marcian,” Geralt answers, closing the door behind him. 

“What did he want?” Jaskier asks, one hand rubbing at his eyes. 

“Just making sure we’re okay,” Geralt answers, taking a seat on the bed. 

Jaskier hums, then plucks at the blankets over him, pulls a face. “These are… damp,” he says. “Maybe we should have dried ourselves before getting into bed.” He sighs, shoves the blankets away – and all of a sudden there he is, naked, sprawled out in soft pillows and warm sheets. Geralt feels a curl of heat in his belly as Jaskier stretches, muscles moving under his skin, the flat plane of his stomach, the mat of hair on his chest, and he licks his lips, breathes in the smell of Jaskier’s skin, his sweat, his body. 

“Why, Geralt, are you alright?” Jaskier asks, soft, teasing. “You’re looking a little… flushed.” 

Geralt gives him a look. “I’m a witcher,” he says. “I can’t blush.” 

“I didn’t say you were blushing,” Jaskier says, reaches out, wraps a hand in the front of Geralt’s shirt and slowly pulls him closer. “I said that you looked _flushed_. You look _uncomfortable_. If I were to be crass, which, of course, I never am, I’d say that you looked like you’re hard as a rock.” His other hand skates lower as Geralt settles over him, grips his cock through his hurriedly-laced trousers, squeezes lightly. “And it feels like I’m right.” 

Geralt noses at his neck, presses an open-mouthed kiss to the skin beneath his ear. “We have a few hours until the banquet,” he murmurs. 

Jaskier’s hands slide under the silk of the shirt, fingernails digging into Geralt’s back. “In which case,” he says, innocent, wide-eyed, innocuous, “if you’re feeling up to it, I think I’m going to need you to fuck me until I scream.” 

A shudder runs through Geralt’s body, head to toe, and he groans as Jaskier’s hands make short work of the laces of his trousers. “You’ve still got to sing tonight,” he says, pulling his shirt over his head, letting Jaskier strip off his trousers. “Not sure screaming too much is the best idea.” 

“Good point,” Jaskier says, nodding thoughtfully, and rolls them over, knocking Geralt’s legs apart and settling between his thighs. “I’ll just have to do my very best to fuck you until _you_ scream. Which, you know, is probably a good idea, considering the fact that you spent last night in a ditch. Don’t want to make you exert yourself more than you have to – wouldn’t want you to pass out on top of me mid-orgasm, that would be awkward as anything. Might spoil the mood.” 

“If you’re trying to turn me on,” Geralt rumbles, one eyebrow raised, “you’re going about it a strange way.” 

“Well then,” Jaskier says, a wicked glint in his eye, hair sleep-mussed, strong and lean, “I’ll just have to go about it the old-fashioned way, won’t I?” 

Geralt’s not going to complain about that. 

Night is falling when Jaskier leads them down to the banqueting hall for the last day of the celebrations, Geralt notes with amusement that pretty much all of the guests are looking a little worse for wear, especially the ones who have been here since that first night in the Marquess’ private dining room. Jaskier goes straight to the other musicians, greets them with his usual blend of professionalism and boundless enthusiasm, and Geralt prowls the edges of the hall, searching for a shadow to blend himself into, to settle back, to watch.

Except then the Countess de Stael catches sight of him and summons him over, introduces him to the man sitting next to her—the same man, he notes, that she was bored by on the first night—and expresses her horror at his _ordeal_ , simply shocking, it’s horrendous that those _philistines_ dared touch you like that – which then progresses into her tablemate—an earl from some remote corner of Temeria that Geralt has barely even heard of—asking for the whole story, which the Countess gives in lurid detail, and all of a sudden half the table’s listening in and Geralt finds himself the centre of a knot of fascinated, shocked nobles who all seem to _be on his side_ and, well, it’s just deeply unsettling, if he’s honest. In the background, Jaskier has started to play, singing something surprisingly restful about babbling brooks and panpipes, but then the earl asks Geralt about what sounds like some kind of water sprite plaguing his lands and the Countess chips in with an anecdote about a witcher who came to a village on her estate to kill a succubus but ended up sleeping with it—from the description, Geralt’s pretty sure it was _Eskel_ , of all people—and, well, somewhere in and among all the misconceptions and oddities, Geralt somehow starts to… enjoy himself? 

He catches Jaskier’s gaze midway through the evening, and there’s nothing but love in his blazing blue eyes. 

Jaskier switches into a tale of epic adventure and derring do, the tale of a mighty witcher defeating an evil, wicked sorceress that Geralt has a sneaking suspicion _may_ have originally been composed with Yennefer in mind. The emotions that flood his chest, though, are admiration and pride and _respect_ , of all things, and even though he knows where that empathy comes from, knows the pain that caused it, something that might be happiness settles deep in his chest. 

Geralt whiles the night away in good food and better drink, and by the time that the party is breaking up, a clearly drunk Marcian being held up by his son, a disapproving Calla looking on with her hands propped sternly on her hips, he’s pleasantly buzzed. He stays sitting at the table as the Countess— _Violetta_ , she continues to insist—bids him goodnight and the earl sways away to probably go throw up somewhere, sits back in his chair, mug of ale held to his chest, and watches as Jaskier slides into a series of love ballads, crooning and saccharine, exactly what the guests seem to want at this late hour. Geralt doesn’t listen to the words, doesn’t listen to the tunes, he just closes his eyes and savours the feelings that flood through him, _Jaskier’s_ feelings, affection like the whisper of the surf against the shore, passion like the blaze of a forest fire, contentment like two bodies wrapped around each other in the warmth of a copper bathtub. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier says, voice soft, and Geralt abruptly realises that the music stopped a little while ago. “Much as I hate to disturb you when you look so happy, we should probably let the servants clean up.” 

Geralt hums in the back of his throat, looks up. Jaskier’s cheeks are flushed, his hair is pushed out of his face, glistening with sweat, and there’s a rasp in his voice that comes from three nights of singing in a row. He looks tired, looks like all he wants to do is collapse into bed and sleep for a week, his shoulders slumped and his smile only twitching at his lips.

Geralt’s not sure he remembers being more content than he is in this moment. 

“Come on,” Jaskier says, takes his hand, tugs him to his feet. “And stop looking at me with those big, sleepy eyes. It’s adorable, and if I start writing songs about how adorable the White Wolf is, I think both of our earnings are going to take a dip.” 

Geralt hums, and follows. 

Back in their rooms, they undress in contented silence, trading the occasional kiss, sparing touches, little more than moments of affection and love. The blankets and sheets have been changed, the bed made again some time in the last few hours, and Geralt sinks into the comfort that he so rarely gets to enjoy, tips his head back, closes his eyes and rumbles a sigh. 

Jaskier laughs softly. “Shift up,” he says, crawling under the blankets and pushing at Geralt’s hip, moving him over. “You’re taking up all the bed.” 

Geralt grumbles, but moves aside.

Jaskier sprawls across him, thigh hooked across Geralt’s, arm outflung across his chest, face buried in his shoulder. He shifts for a little while, getting comfortable, and Geralt just lies there listening to the soft noises he makes, the slow beating of his heart, the whispering of his breath as he settles into stillness. Geralt’s dozing by the time Jaskier is settled, warm and heavy, half on top of him, and he almost misses it when Jaskier sighs against his skin, presses a kiss to his collarbone. “Gods, I love you,” he murmurs. 

Geralt wraps his arm around Jaskier’s waist, holds him close. 

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, just as soft. 

Geralt shifts, opens his eyes a little. “For what?”

“Being here,” Jaskier answers. “Putting up with everything. And I don’t just mean those little noble shits, either – I mean Marcian, Violetta, all of them. I know it’s not how you want to be spending your time, entertaining all these prissy nobles.” 

Geralt thinks about the ale and food and conversation at the banquet, the soft tease of Calla’s conversation on the first night, Marcian’s quiet respect. “As nobles go,” he says, gruff and quiet, “they’re not so bad.” 

Jaskier snorts, kisses Geralt’s collarbone once more. “High praise.” 

Geralt hums. “Go to sleep, Jaskier.” 

Jaskier sighs, goes a little more lax. “Two days, and we’ll be back at Triss’,” he says, little more than a murmur. “No more nobles. No more bullshit. I’m going to tie myself to our bed and never leave.” 

Geralt laughs, little more than a gush of air. “Now _there’s_ an idea.” 

Jaskier’s hand slaps lightly against his stomach. “Think about it tomorrow,” he says, voice slipping quieter. “I’m sleepy.” 

Geralt hums softly, and they sleep. 

The morning is almost gone by the time Jaskier wakes. 

He’s alone in bed, which isn’t really that surprising, and he can hear the faint sounds of Geralt moving around in the other room, along with the smell of fresh bread that means the breakfast tray has arrived and, this time, hasn’t been killed. Jaskier stretches out against the pillows, rubs at his eyes for a moment, then calls, “Geralt! Bring me my breakfast!” 

There’s a pause, in which Jaskier can fully imagine Geralt rolling his eyes, and then a shuffle of footsteps. 

Geralt appears in the doorway, shirtless, breakfast tray in one hand. “Not sure it counts as breakfast if it’s midday by the time you eat it,” he rumbles. 

Jaskier sits up and takes the tray from him, lets himself stare at the scarred muscle of Geralt’s bare chest for a moment, then remembers that he doesn’t have to drink in the sight like a starving man anymore, that he can look his fill whenever he wants. A soft warm spreads through his heart at the thought, and he settles back against the headboard, tray in his lap. “How’s your head?” he asks. 

“Healed, mostly,” Geralt says, sitting at the foot of the bed. He tilts his head forward, lets Jaskier see – and he’s right. The wounds that were aching gashes yesterday afternoon are now little more than shiny pink scars, and within a few days, Jaskier knows, they’ll have faded into nothingness. Gashes like those aren’t serious enough to properly scar, not for a witcher, and that reassures Jaskier, a little. Give it a week, and the marks will be gone. Give it a week, and the memory will have faded. 

Geralt’s hand settles around his ankle, warm and heavy. “How long do you want to stay here?” 

Jaskier shakes his head. “Not long,” he says. “I’ll get dressed, we’ll pack up. I need to go see Marcian, collect my fee – and check on his hangover, I mean, he was _ruined_ last night. But then we’ll head out.” He pauses. “If that’s alright?” 

Geralt nods, wordless. 

Jaskier eats slowly, fruit and bread and soft cheese, and talks about nothing in particular. Geralt listens, sometimes offering a remark or a comment, more often a smirk or a raised eyebrow, and when they’ve stripped the tray bare between them, Jaskier rolls out of bed with a groan of protest, gets dressed, and sets about the long process of finding all the belongings that he’s scattered across their rooms, shoving them back into his travelling bags. Geralt’s done all of that already, of course, so he just sits at the table and silently passes judgement as Jaskier tries to figure out why he brought _so many clothes_. 

Geralt snorts. “You always have too many clothes,” he observes. 

Jaskier shoots him a glance. “Well, at least you have to admit that I was right about making you get those silk shirts,” he says, eyebrow raised. “They look good. And I’ve seen your face when you put them on – they _feel_ good, too, don’t they?” 

Geralt’s lips thin, and he doesn’t answer.

“Exactly,” Jaskier says, a little smug, and goes back to his packing. 

It’s probably a little after midday when they’re ready, bags piled next to the door, Jaskier’s lute tucked away in its case, Geralt’s twin swords propped next to it. Jaskier pulls on his boots, adjusts the fastenings of his doublet, then gets to his feet, stretches his shoulders. “I’m going to go find Marcian,” he says, then flashes Geralt an awkward smile. “I’d say that you should head down to the stables, get Roach saddled, but if I’m honest I don’t think I want to let you out of my sight again until we’re far away from here – so come with me?” 

Geralt nods, and that’s that. 

Jaskier snags a passing servant, gets them to take their bags down to the stables – everything except his lute and Geralt’s swords, of course, and then Jaskier leads them through the corridors on the circuitous route he’s pretty sure he remembers to get to Marcian’s office. “You really think that’s where he’ll be?” Geralt asks, clearly sceptical.

Jaskier nods. “It was always his pattern,” he says. “At Oxenfurt, when I was so hungover I wanted to throw up, I’d stay in bed and refuse to come out. Marcian? He’d go and find an empty corner of the library, or our study room, anything like that. He likes to try to push through the hangover and pretend it isn’t happening instead of—”

“Curling up in a ball and insisting that you’re dying?” Geralt interrupts. 

Jaskier sniffs. “It _is_ possible to die of a hangover, Geralt.” 

“I’m pretty sure it isn’t.” 

“You’re a witcher,” Jaskier says. “You don’t know what mortal hangovers are like.” 

“You don’t know what _witcher_ hangovers are like.”

Jaskier laughs. “From what I saw this winter,” he says, “it’s mainly throwing up while getting shouting at by Vesemir. Which, to be honest, I imagine isn’t ideal.” He pauses outside the door to Marcian’s study, cocks one eyebrow at Geralt. “You coming in?” 

Geralt pauses, studies him. “Do you want me to?” 

Jaskier smiles, just a little. “I always want you with me,” he says, trying not to think about quite how saccharine that statement is. “And _especially_ when I’m going to go and mock my old friend because he can’t hold his ale.” 

Geralt thinks about it for a moment. “You _did_ see my brothers in various states of… disrepair,” he says, which Jaskier thinks is a frankly generous term for watching them all empty their stomachs all over the training grounds of Kaer Morhen. “It only seems fair.” 

“In that case,” Jaskier says, smiling softly, and turns the handle. 

Marcian’s inside, as becomes rapidly clear from the vague smell of stale alcohol and old sweat. To be more precise, he’s currently sitting with his forehead resting flat on the desk in front of him, and he groans when the door opens, says something that Jaskier can’t make out.

Geralt chuckles, seemingly in response to whatever Marcian’s just mumbled. “Should we find you a bucket?” 

Marcian jerks upwards, peers at them blearily. “Shit,” he says, clearly not expecting it to be them. “Julian. _Jaskier_ , sorry. And Geralt.” He blinks, tries to get to his feet but then clearly gives up halfway through, sits down heavily. “Apologies,” he says. “I intended to come to see you this morning. However, I think I may have… overindulged last night.” 

Jaskier laughs. “Maybe, maybe,” he says reflectively. “You _did_ look a little worse for wear when you were leaving. Did Matheu have to carry you the _whole_ way back to your rooms, or…?” 

Marcian groans. “Shut it.” 

Geralt cocks an eyebrow. “I thought you were trying to improve our opinion of your hospitality?”

Something warms in Jaskier’s stomach at the barb, gentle but pointed. It’s the kind of thing that Geralt would direct at Eskel, at Coën. Not Lambert, though, but that’s just because Lambert would merit something entirely ruder. He’d probably deserve it, too. 

“There’s hospitality,” Marcian says, exhaustion thick in his voice, “and then there’s my guests coming to make fun of me in my distressed state.” He sags back against his chair, sighs. “My apologies. I shouldn’t jest.” He flashes Jaskier a smile, tired and worn, the smile of a man in his late forties who’s had far too many glasses of wine for his own good. He rummages in his desk drawers for a moment, movements slow and sluggish, then retrieves a sizeable purse and pushes it across the desk. “I should really be in a better state to bid you farewell, Jaskier,” he says, returning his forehead to his desk, “but it turns out that I really can’t drink as much as I used to, anymore.” 

Jaskier snorts. “I could have told you that,” he says, and picks up the purse, tucks it away in his pocket. He pauses, glances to Geralt for a second. “I can’t stay, Marcian,” he says, “but I’ll come back for a week or so before Matheu’s due to go to Oxenfurt. If you’d still like that – if _he’d_ still like that.” 

Marcian looks up from the table, from where he presents a frankly pathetic portrait – but his smile is broad and welcoming. “That would be perfect,” he says, a little heavy, a little tired. “I’d love to arrange the specifics now, but I imagine that you need to get on the road – and, to be honest, I think that if I tried to organise _anything_ right now, my head would explode.” 

Jaskier laughs. “I guess it’s a little harder to just push through a hangover nowadays.” 

“Apparently so,” Marcian groans. 

“Well, I’ll write to you, iron out the details,” Jaskier says, amusement in his voice. He pauses, studies Marcian for a moment. “Marcian, are you okay? Do you want us to take you back to your room or something? Because you really don’t look good.” 

“Ugh,” Marcian says, then mumbles something into the desk.

Geralt’s lips twist in a smirk. “He said something about wine,” he says, “and then I think the word ‘bad’.” 

“We’ve all been there,” Jaskier says brightly. He reaches out, pats Marcian a couple of times on the head. “See you soon.” 

Marcian grumbles something incoherent into the desk, and Jaskier looks to Geralt for a translation.

Geralt just shrugs. “No idea.” 

Jaskier laughs. “Fair enough,” he says, and leaves Marcian to his stupor. 

“You know,” Jaskier says, the dust of the path puffing up beneath his every step, “I think I’m going to write a song about those arsehole nobles.” He thinks for a second, nodding to himself, then starts to take his lute out of its case. “Oh yeah,” he says, tossing the now-empty case to Geralt without even looking, knowing that he’ll catch it and then probably grumble for a bit, but will attach it carefully to Roach’s saddle anyway. “ _Definitely_ going to write a song about them.” He plucks a chord, hums in disapproval, plucks another. 

Geralt is in the middle of lashing the empty case to Roach’s packs. “It wasn’t exactly a rousing triumph,” he says, his voice carefully neutral in the way it gets, Jaskier knows, when he’s trying to convince himself that he’s not bothered. “More embarrassing than heroic.” 

Jaskier wags a finger, picks out a scattering of notes. “That’s not the kind of song I was thinking about,” he says, then pauses, winces. “Plus, given my… emotional involvement, I somehow doubt that would work, anyway.” He pulls a face. “I miss that vampire song, you know? That was a good one. And I just had to go and ruin it with my emotions, didn’t I?” He sighs, shakes his head. “Anyhow. No, Geralt, I wasn’t planning on turning your involuntary sojourn in a ditch into my next heroic epic. I’m thinking more… well, I think ‘slander’ is the technical term. Maybe ‘libel’.” 

At his side, Roach’s reins wrapped around his hand as they meander slowly down the path out of Marcian’s estate, Geralt raises an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like your best idea.” 

Jaskier shrugs. “I’m not talking about an actual proper composition, you understand,” he says. “You know, something of actual _quality_ – gods, I’m not going to waste that much fucking time and effort over those little shits. But there’s a long tradition of taking old tunes, something catchy, something that everyone already knows, and… rewriting the words.” He shrugs, doesn’t bother to suppress the flicker of anger that sparks through his gut. “Anything about tiny cocks and premature ejaculation is always popular.” 

Geralt’s looking at him. “Premature ejaculation,” he repeats. 

Jaskier flashes him a smile that he knows for a fact is borderline wicked. “That’s the spirit!” 

Geralt huffs out a breath. “Let me guess,” he says, flat as a board to anyone else – but Jaskier knows him more than well enough to hear the amusement in his voice. “This song means that I’m going to have to save you from angry drunkards in even more taverns across the Continent?” 

“Depends on the tavern,” Jaskier answers. “I mean, honestly, if I’m singing shit about the local landowners in your average workman’s tavern, it actually tends to endear my audience to me somewhat. Everyone likes to laugh at the boss.” 

“So I’ll just have to keep an eye out for guards in the manor houses?”

Jaskier laughs. “Something like that.” 

Geralt shakes his head, but Jaskier can see the curl at the corner of his lips, affectionate, maybe even grateful. “It’s not the first time this has happened,” he says, “and it won’t be the last. If you wrote songs about everyone who spits at me in the street, you’d never stop singing.” 

“I _don’t_ ever plan to stop singing,” Jaskier points out. “But there’s a difference, Geralt, between the idiot villagers who are too tired and too scared of whatever monster is haunting their home to think straight – and the wealthy arseholes whose idea of sport is hurting another person.” He thinks about that first glimpse of Geralt, staggering down the side of the road like he was drunk, blood in his hair, a vacant, absent expression in his eyes that, just for a moment, tore Jaskier’s heart in two with fear. He grits his teeth, not-so-accidentally steps closer to Geralt so their shoulders brush, then grins a white-toothed smile. “And if you’re not going to stand up for yourself, which we both know you won’t, then I’ll just have to do it for you.” 

Geralt’s look is exasperated. “I don’t need you to protect me, Jaskier.” 

“Who said anything about protecting you?” Jaskier says, blithely ignoring the fact that he just said exactly that. He pats his pocket, still bulging with Marcian’s purse of gold. “Marcian might have provided me with a list of names and titles before the banquet last night,” he says, affecting innocence, “and suggested that if I were willing to compose a few ditties on the subject, he’d be exceedingly grateful.” 

Geralt looks surprised. “ _Marcian_ asked you to do this?” 

Jaskier shrugs, strums a chord that’s bright and shining in the warmth of the afternoon. “It’s bad for his reputation to have it known that one of his guests was treated like you were without recompense,” he says. “Getting a world-famous bard to smear them in song _definitely_ counts as recompense.” He pauses, smiles a little softer. “Plus, I think he likes you.” 

Geralt just hums at that, and walks onward. 

Leaves rustle overhead as they traipse under the trees, the sunlight glancing through to dapple the dusty path in shadow. There’s enough of a breeze to tease stray strands of hair out of Geralt’s tie, sending them dancing around his head, and the sound of Roach’s hooves mingles with the wind, making music all of its own. Jaskier’s still tired, if he’s honest, weary from three nights of performing, exhausted from the stress, from the worry, but he’s walking the world on a springtime afternoon with his lute in his hands and Geralt at his side and, well, there’s nowhere he’d rather be. 

“Won’t your emotions get in the way of these songs, too?” Geralt asks eventually, his voice almost soft enough that it gets lost under the thrumming of the strings. “Your fear.” 

“I’m hoping I can tap more into my righteous indignation,” Jaskier says. “My blazing fury, that kind of thing.”

“You were afraid, though,” Geralt says, muted. 

“Of course I was,” Jaskier says, then slings his lute across his back, reaches out, grips Geralt’s fingers for a moment before letting go. There’s a sourness in the back of his throat that he tries to ignore. “Terrified, actually. Had visions of finding your body, throat cut and this fucking sigil on my tongue branded into your chest. But like you said.” He smiles, lopsided and only as happy as he can make it. “We’re safe.”

Geralt hums, and he smiles a little, too. 

They camp outside, that night, under the clear springtime skies, sleeping next to a fire that gutters low in the dim light of evening. Jaskier sings to himself, for a little while, trying to figure out how best to fit _the Allesland heir can only come when he’s thinking about fucking a pig_ into a hexameter metre, but then Geralt confiscates his lute and kisses him to stop his protests and, well, Jaskier can’t exactly remember when the last time he had sex outside was but it turns out that sex outside _with Geralt_ is something of a revelation. 

They doze, after, wrapped around each other on a shared bedroll. 

It’s not ideal to be honest, once the sweat and heat has faded, because it’s still fairly cold once the sun has set, the chill seeping into Jaskier’s bones like he was born with it. He curls into Geralt’s side to combat it, sinks into the furnace-heat of his warmth, and falls asleep to the achingly slow rhythm of Geralt’s heartbeat. 

Jaskier’s jolted awake by a hand over his mouth, fingertips digging tight into his cheeks, and for a second fear shocks through him so sharply he thinks he’s going to vomit. He realises after a shattered, fractious heartbeat that, oh, fuck, it’s just _Geralt_ , his golden eyes reflecting the light of the dying fire – and the rush of relief through his chest is only matched by the deep, insistent sensation of _what the actual fuck, Geralt?_ that runs underneath. 

Some of that must show in his expression, because Geralt murmurs, “I heard something.”

Jaskier freezes, and there’s that fear again, bubbling up. 

Geralt releases Jaskier’s mouth, presses him against the ground with an unspoken command to stay put, and reaches for his swords. He’s lithe, controlled, every movement tight and precise and only what he needs it to, and the soft whisper of his steel sword sliding out of its sheath is enough to set Jaskier’s teeth on edge. He shifts a little against the bedroll, reaches for his boot, feels the narrow handle of the dagger that _Lambert_ , of all people, pressed into his hands when they left Kaer Morhen – then stills, watches Geralt move silently around the guttering fire, all the elegance of a jungle cat. 

Jaskier doesn’t hear anything, the trees whispering into the quiet around them.

Everything is still for a long moment.

Geralt strikes, his sword slashing through the air quicker than a striking snake – only to be met like for like in a ringing clash of steel-on-steel that sends nightbirds squawking from the trees. Jaskier scrabbles up onto his knees, knife in his hand and heart in his mouth, because who the fuck is quick enough to catch the blade of a witcher in the _dark?!_

Which probably should have been a clue. 

“ _Stand down, Geralt!_ ” a familiar voice barks. 

Jaskier blinks. “Eskel?” he asks, his voice squeaking higher than he means it to, and scrambles to his feet. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Geralt asks, clearly just as startled, and then he’s stepping back into the fading light of the fire and, yeah, that’s Eskel at his side. 

“Looking for you two,” Eskel answers, glancing over at Jaskier with what looks like worry in his gaze. “Got back to the sorceress’ house yesterday, saw your message. Sounded like you might be in trouble. Heard sounds out in the woods, smelled it was you. Thought I’d investigate, make sure you hadn’t been kidnapped or anything – and what do I get for my troubles? Geralt’s sword in my face.” 

“Our message?” Jaskier says. still pumped full of adrenaline and confusion. “What message?” – and then pauses, remembers. “Oh, _that_ message,” he says, and deflates a little. “The one we sent when I panicked and thought we were going to be murdered and fed to the dogs by my old friend.” 

Geralt sighs, then comes back to Jaskier’s side, sheathes his sword and sits back down on their bedroll. 

Eskel raises an eyebrow. “I’m assuming from your tone of voice that that _didn’t_ happen?” he says. “And that I’ve just ridden Llwyd hard all the way here for nothing?” 

“That would be one way of putting it,” Jaskier says, wincing. 

Eskel’s gaze is flat. “You’re a pair of fucking idiots.” 

“Geralt did get abducted!” Jaskier offers, then decides that it’s probably best for him to take a large step away from Geralt if he’s going to continue that line of thought. He does so, and makes himself look busy by grabbing a few dry sticks, feeding them to the guttering fire. 

Worry flickers in Eskel’s eyes again. “You did?” he asks, coming closer, his gaze narrowing in on the freshly-healed scar crossing Geralt’s forehead. “Shit, that looks like it was bad.” 

There’s a muscle jumping in Geralt’s jaw, and he glares at Jaskier. “It was… fine.” 

“What happened?” Eskel asks, still tight with concern. “Is whatever did that still close by? If it was too much for you to deal with by yourself, Geralt, I’m pretty sure we could take it on together.” 

Jaskier can’t hold back his snort.

Geralt’s gaze is murderous. 

“What am I missing?” Eskel asks slowly. 

“It was kids,” Jaskier says. 

“It wasn’t _kids_ ,” Geralt interrupts. 

“Kids?” Eskel asks.

“Youths, I guess, technically,” Jaskier elaborates, and he shouldn’t laugh, he really shouldn’t, it isn’t funny and he did spend most of that night thinking that he’d lost Geralt so fucking soon after he found him in the first place – but it’s _funny_. A hysterical kind of funny, yeah, sure, but funny nonetheless. 

Eskel’s eyebrows are rising slowly. “Youths,” he says, his lips twitching. 

“ _Noble_ youths,” Jaskier points out. 

“Noble youths.” 

“They got the jump on me,” Geralt growls, “because I was worried about you, Jaskier.” 

“They _got the jump on you_ ,” Eskel repeats, his smile spreading into a grin. “A bunch of noble kids. Oh, Geralt, I always thought Lambert was exaggerating when he said that you were getting old – but, brother, you’re getting old and _slow_.” 

“Right?” Jaskier exclaims. 

Geralt rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he sighs.

“Absolutely not,” Eskel answers. “I’m going to tell everyone. Lambert is going to shit himself laughing.” 

Geralt drops his head into his hands. “Eskel—”

“Vesemir won’t let you back into the keep.” 

Jaskier laughs, bright and shining and warm in the depths of his heart.

Eskel brays a laugh. “Noble _kids!_ ” 

“ _Fuck off_ —”


End file.
